Anish Kapoor on creativity, erasure and the void
The sculptor and painter delivers the 2026 Nehru Memorial Lecture at King's College London, examining how artists might resist enforced obedience through absence and the generative power of silence.
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Anish Kapoor will deliver the 2026 Nehru Memorial Lecture at King’s College London on 13 November, exploring the paradoxical relationship between creativity and absence. Entitled ‘Please Remain Seated: The Cockroach, the Artist, and the Return of the Repressed’, the lecture moves through the generative possibilities of the void in art and poetry, tracing how emptiness functions both as a creative force and as an instrument of political suppression.
Kapoor’s meditation on absence arrives at a moment of particular urgency in India. The lecture will address the rise of Hindu nationalism and the erosion of the country’s pluralistic inheritance, considering how the suppression of cultural identity operates through enforced obedience. Against this backdrop, Kapoor examines the means by which artists, activists and citizens might resist: through silence, through refusal, through the deliberate occupation of empty space.
The work carries the weight of his artistic practice, in which void and surface, light and darkness, have long been central preoccupations. His sculptural installations, including ‘Descent Into Limbo’ currently shown at the Venice Biennale in 2026 at Palazzo Manfrin, harness the philosophical and political dimensions of emptiness, inviting viewers into spaces where absence becomes tangible and resistance palpable.
The lecture takes place at 18:30 on 13 November at King’s College, Strand Campus. Lisson Gallery represents Kapoor internationally and manages his exhibition schedule.
Imagery courtesy of Lisson Gallery (@lisson_gallery).
