Anish Kapoor[no title] 2000

This is one in a suite of thirteen etchings entitled Blackness from Her Womb. The suite was produced in an edition of thirty of which the first twelve were bound as books, and the remaining eighteen were presented unbound in boxed portfolios made of hand-dyed parchment. Tate’s suite is number twenty-five, and is one of the portfolio versions. Each of the thirteen prints is signed by the artist. The project was designed and printed by master engraver Jacob Samuel.

Following the title page, the portfolio includes two pages each printed with two lines of text. These read: ‘Crows are calling/Blackness from her womb’, and ‘Valley of red/Wounded walls of tranquility’. In this way colour is registered as an important theme in the work before the images are encountered. The words link the womb with injury, darkness and foreboding, but also align it with the landscape, and evoke it as a refuge… (read more)