LONDON.- Temenos, a major new site-specific installation by internationally celebrated artist Anish Kapoor and leading structural engineer, Cecil Balmond will be unveiled in Middlesbrough on Thursday 10 June.

The 110m long and 50m high sculpture is located at the northeastern corner of Middlesbrough Dock, Middlehaven between the Transporter Bridge and the Riverside Stadium.

The work, commissioned by Tees Valley Unlimited, is part of the world’s largest public art initiative and is the first in a proposed series of five large-scale installations by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond in Middlesbrough, Stockton, Hartlepool, Darlington, Redcar and Cleveland.

Tees Valley Unlimited worked for several years to secure the project, which is symbolic of its aspiration and commitment to the regeneration of Tees Valley.

Temenos is funded and supported by government initiative The Northern Way, Regional Development Agency One North East, The Homes and Communities Agency. Arts Council England, Northern Rock Foundation, Middlesbrough Football Club and BioRegional Quintain.

An exhibition of works by Anish Kapoor to coincide with the launch of Temenos is on show at Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA) until 15 August 2010. The exhibition has been developed in direct collaboration with the artist.

Anish Kapoor is one of the most influential artists of his generation. He was born on 12 March 1954 in Bombay. He moved to London in the early 1970s where he has lived and worked ever since. He quickly gained international attention and acclaim for a series of solo exhibitions at venues including: Tate Gallery, London (1990-01); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2003); Fondazione Prada, Milano (1995); Hayward Gallery, London (1998); BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (1999); Piazza del Plebiscito, Naples (1999); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2003); MAC Grand-Hornu, Belgium (2004); Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (2004); Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (2008) MAK, Vienna (2009); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2009); Pinchuk Arts Centre, Kiev (2010); and Guggenheim Bilbao (2010). His recent major solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (26 September – 11 December 2010), showcasing a number of new and previously unseen works, was the most successful ever presented by a contemporary artist in London. He represented Britain at the Paris Biennale in 1982 and at the Venice Biennale in 1990, where he was awarded the ‘Premio Duemila’. He won the Turner Prize in 1991 and he received the prestigious Unilever Commission for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern in 2002, which he realised with the much-acclaimed work, Marsyas. Among his major permanent commissions is Cloud Gate (2004) for the Millennium Park in Chicago, considered to be the most popular public artwork in the world. He was recently awarded the commission with Cecil Balmond for a permanent artwork for the London 2010 Olympic Park, the ArcelorMittal Orbit. He was awarded a CBE in 2003.

Cecil Balmond was born in Sri Lanka, where he trained as a civil engineer before joining Arup in London in 1968. He founded The Advanced Geometry Unit (AGU) at Arup in 2000, where he now works with scientists, architects and engineers to pursue his interest in the genesis of form using numbers, music and mathematics as vital sources. He has collaborated with many leading architects including Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Arata Isozaki, Toyo Ito and Alvaro Siza. Projects include Casa da Musica in Porto with Rem Koolhaas, Serpentine Pavilions with Daniel Libeskind, Toyo Ito and Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura and the CCTV New Headquarters, Beijing with OMA in 2009. His collaborations with Anish Kapoor include Marsyas for the Unilever Series at Tate Modern in 2002 and the major ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture commission to mark the London 2012 Olympics.