A polished image marks sculptor's return to Boston

Years ago, when the Institute of Contemporary Art's waterfront building was still being planned, curator Nicholas Baume put together his exhibition wish list. At the top: a solo show for Anish Kapoor.

Today, 18 months after the ICA opened on Fan Pier, the museum devotes its West Gallery to the Bombay-born, London-based sculptor. The first US museum survey of Kapoor's work in 15 years, the show returns the artist to the museum that was the first in the country to feature him in an exhibit back in 1985. That was in the ICA's former space, on Boylston Street.

Much has changed since then. Kapoor is now a Turner Prize-winning sculptor whose work has sold for as much as $2.8 million. And the ICA drew more than 280,000 visitors in its first year in the new building, 10 times the number that walked through its old home the previous year. Still, this exhibit might be more important to the ICA than the artist, whose massive outdoor projects in Chicago and New York in recent years have raised his profile in America and brought him much acclaim.

Last week, Baume stood in the gallery as Kapoor and an installation crew put the exhibition together. The curator says he is eager to show Bostonians the work of Kapoor, particularly those who have seen only photos of his outdoor pieces. These include the 110-ton "Cloud Gate," a reflective, bean-shaped work that was permanently installed in Chicago's Millennium Park in 2004, and "Sky Mirror," a giant steel disc that was temporarily on display in New York City's Rockefeller Center in 2006.

"Pictures don't do it when it comes to his work," Baume says. "But when you see it in person, it really is astonishing."

"Past, Present, Future" features 14 Kapoor pieces, from "1000 Names," (1979-'80), an assortment of geometrical shapes dusted with red, yellow, and white pigment, to a series of hung mirrored circles completed in 2007.

At 54, Kapoor's once black hair is threaded with gray. During a day of installation, he held his eyeglasses in his hand as he watched over workers hanging one of his wall pieces. A few minutes later, he observed an assistant buffing a large mirror and made sure no smudges remained on its surface.

Taking a quick lunch break, Kapoor laughed easily as he discussed his reasons for agreeing to the ICA exhibit. It had nothing to do with loyalty, he says, adding that he doesn't remember much about his 1985 ICA show. He admits that he had to be sold on the space, visiting the ICA during construction to get a sense of what the gallery would feel like.

"The scale of the room's good, and I like the light in there, too," Kapoor says. "Soft. It gives a good weight to the sculpture."

The ICA has received mixed marks for its first shows in the new building, but the Kapoor exhibit is generating considerable buzz throughout the art world, says Bill Arning, curator of MIT's List Visual Art Center. The exhibit, he says, strikes a perfect balance between attracting mainstream visitors and showing art that inspires curators across the country.

"Kapoor is someone who makes spectacular objects that are really entertaining and captivating and can draw in anyone from your cousin from the 'burbs to a theoretical physicist and get them engaged at a profound level," says Arning. "This show is something that no one in America has seen before."

The work Kapoor has installed at the ICA is inspired by the artist's longstanding desire to play with shapes and materials. At one end of the gallery, an 11-foot mound of red, gelatinous wax is continually smoothed by a rotating curved slab of steel. In another section, an egg-shaped white fiberglass orb sits on the floor, with a rectangular indentation on one side that plays with the viewer's sense of perspective. Nearby, "S-Curve," a giant S-shaped mirror, stretches across the room.

Working in the gallery, Kapoor picks up a spray bottle of paint to touch up the egg and chats with Baume about a plan to test different shades of bulbs in the ceiling for evening hours.

When asked about his artistic aims, Kapoor talks of how he likes to test the senses through the use of unexpected materials and designs. For example, some of his pieces appear to change shape depending on where someone is standing in a gallery.

"Hopefully, when you see a work of mine it tells you, when you've seen enough of it, that these are objects that problematize the idea of what an object is," Kapoor says. "An object that has a kind of transient state in a world where objects are what they are. A Coke bottle is a Coke bottle. What is an object, and why does it live in a particular way in the world? It's a speculative series of projections rather than a straightforward course."

Installing the show itself was not exactly straightforward for the ICA. Unable to fit "S-Curve" through the doors, the ICA removed a section of its southwest wall and used a crane to hoist the work directly into the fourth-floor gallery. "Bloody architects," Kapoor jokes.

In addition, the ICA brought two of Kapoor's assistants from London as well as two expert installers from San Francisco to handle the polished stainless-steel pieces.

Kapoor is particular about how his art is sold and presented. In an age when sculptures are often reproduced for collectors, he typically doesn't make more than one edition of each piece. He also refused to let this show travel to other museums, which would have helped defray the ICA's costs. The museum declined to say how much it will spend on the show, and Baume says reconceiving the exhibition for another space would have taken Kapoor too much time and energy, while the artist wanted to get back to his studio.

Kapoor snickers when asked what the ICA retrospective could mean for him personally.

"You can't plot your career," he says. "That idea is ridiculous. The question is much simpler. Can we do it properly? Does it feel like the right sort of time? Is the space the kind of space in which it will look good? That's probably a more important question than anything else."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com. For more on the arts, visit boston.com/ae/theater_arts/exhibitionist.