We want more Anish Kapoor: the Indian sculptor's Royal Academy exhibition under review

REVIEW: Forty fully-grown adults stand in the Large Weston Room of the Royal Academy of Arts staring intently at what art students describe as 'a ritual arena in which a symbollic act of repeated violence is allowed to occur.' What this means in ordinary speak is staring at the wall waiting for a cannon to fire twenty-pound shells of wax into the wall. Every twenty minutes.

We all jump as the red wax hits it at fifty miles an hour and splashes all across the carved ceiling. A member of staff informs me that they've tried to fire the gun less regularly as the already reinforced walls of the Royal Academy are starting to cave under the pressure of Anish Kapoor's Shooting into the Corner. Even larger in scale is Svayambh, an installation occupying five galleries that will make you watch a block of wax move through doorways at snail pace for up to 45 minutes depending on how stupid you are and how long it takes you to work out it isn't going to do anything more interesting anytime soon. It smells of wax and looks so gloopy you want to touch it. In fact some idiot has already left finger prints (in spite of the rules).

More true to his usual work are Yellow and Non-objects which have the clean lines and shiny surfaces that Kapoor is well known for. They too are imposing and visually thrilling. For the most part, however, the clever part isn't the geometry or the philosophical grounding of his work. It's the fact that he's made forty fully grown adults stare at the wall waiting for some wax to fly. And then he's made them realise how absurdly idiotic they've been.

The exhibition is running until 11th December. So go see it for goodness sake.

MK