Anish Kapoor 2011

The latest addition to the Illy artist cup collection offers a glimpse of infinity to go with your espresso. Designed by the artist Anish Kapoor, the cup and its matching saucer have a reflective platinum finish. 

What do you see when you look into a hole? Usually, the answer is the bottom. But that's hardly the answer when someone as prolific as Mumbai-born British sculptor Anish Kapoor is designing it. Kapoor has created a limited edition set of artistic cups and saucers for Italian coffee brand, illy.

These new illy cups and saucers, designed around the themes of doubt, ambivalence, error, mystery, surprise and desire, seem to make the act of drinking coffee more profound.

With an external ceramic finish, these limited edition cups and saucers are platinum-plated on the inside, and there's a deep hole in the centre of the saucer.

The idea is that when the saucer is placed on top (to keep the coffee warm?), the flickering reflections take form and thus blend emptiness and fullness, external internal in one piece. And illy refers to it as 'an interactive, sensory experience meant to delight and surprise'. So when you place your saucer over the cup, the dimensions become blurred and form an intriguing sculpture. Deep isn't it?

Anish Kapoor was born in Bombay in 1954 and has lived in London since the early 70s when he studied at Hornsey College of Art and Chelsea School of Art Design. Over the past twenty years he has exhibited extensively in London and all over the world with solo shows at venues including Kunsthalle Basel, Tate Gallery, Hayward Gallery and Royal Academy in London, Reina Sofia in Madrid, CAPC in Bordeaux, Haus der Kunst in Munich and most recently his first major exhibitions in India took place at the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi and the Mehboob Film Studios in Mumbai. He has also participated internationally in many group shows including the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Serpentine Gallery in London, Documenta IX in Kassel, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Jeu de Paume, Centre Georges Pompidou and Grand Palais in Paris.

Anish Kapoor was awarded the 'Premio Duemila' at the Venice Biennale in 1990, the Turner Prize Award in 1991 and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship at the London Institute in 1997 and a CBE in 2003. He was recently awarded the commission with Cecil Balmond for a permanent artwork for the London 2012 Olympic Park, the Orbit.

This illy Art Collection project was made possible by a collaboration with GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin and Bodum Group.

This product contains;

- original illy collection gift set box

- 2 x numbered & signed limited edition art collection ESPRESSO cups with saucers

- original brochure

Please note ALL gift sets are thoroughly checked before dispatch and ilcaffe.com.au are not liable for any damage incurred through transport and do not recommend leaving the goods @ front door if no one is home to sign for them.