RA Magazine Blog: Kapoor tour

Royal Academician Anish Kapoor's works on show in Kensington Gardens

Last year's blockbuster Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Royal Academy saw a selection of the artist's stainless steel sculptures displayed in the distinctive architectural surrounds of the RA's Main Galleries. In a show full of crowd- and critic-pleasing wonders such as 'Shooting into the Corner', the highly reflective steel pieces held their own. They were endlessly engrossing because of their endless mutability - reflecting, refracting and distorting the figures of gallery visitors, capturing and amplifying the smallest movement in the room and playing tricks with scale.

These illusory qualities again come into play in 'Turning the World Upside Down', jointly organised by The Royal Parks and the Serpentine Gallery. The six-month exhibition sees four of Kapoor's stainless steel works placed in Kensington Gardens.

Romping around the park in search of the sculptures feels like a treasure hunt. In leafy sections of the gardens, Non Object (Spire) and C-Curve reflect the foliage and grass along with the visitors drawn inexorably to them (Kapoor's fantastically shiny objects appeal to the magpie in us all). The trees themselves form a sort of frame within the reflected world, gently blurring the boundaries between it and the surrounding environment.

By contrast, the two Sky Mirror works are out in the open and by water. One is tinted red and mounted in the Round Pond; the other a monumental mirrored disc behind The Longwater. They face each other across the flat expanse of the park, reflecting the changing moods of the sky while the water echoes back at them, throwing their reflections around just as Kapoor's mirrored surfaces do to visitors.

Watch the short video above for a taster of what to expect.

• Royal Academy of Arts