Anish Kapoor paints the Royal Academy red

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the 'paint train' – a 30-tonne block of wax, paint and Vaseline that runs back and forth through five empty galleries, covering them in a trail of blood red Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/Christian Sinibaldi

The work is named Svayambh, from a Sanskrit word meaning self-generated or auto-generated Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/Christian Sinibaldi

The 'train' is so large that it only just fits through each archway, leaving them spattered with red paint. Disconcertingly, Svayambh 'is much like a Hovis loaf', says Adrian Searle. 'It also leads to the thought that the galleries are a kind of alimentary canal' Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/Christian Sinibaldi

Another room is filled with concrete sculptures drawn and produced with the aid of a computer-assisted piping maching. 'It is a world of worm-cast mountains, intestinal tubing, funnels and squirming nests, writing columns of turds, lava-like puddles and drools, hollow cakes and all sorts of sagging gateaux and towers,' says Searle. Photograph: Royal Academy

Turning the World Upside Down, Non-object (Door), Vertigo and Non Object (Pole) are sculptures in stainless steel and gold that distort the world around them into strange reflections Photograph: Royal Academy

'The daftness of some of Kapoor's art is a good counterbalance to the more ponderous pretensions the artist has always been prey to', says Searle – and it is the tension between the two that produces his strongest work, such as Svayambh Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/Christian Sinibaldi

The Royal Academy 'is turning into a bat cave of painter's guano... a sticky grotto of baroque goo' Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/Christian Sinibaldi

Anish Kapoor with his sculpture Tall Trees and the Eye Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

The concrete sculptures 'take us almost back to the beginning, not just of Kapoor's own journey as an artist, but of sculpture itself, whose origin lies in rocks and mud, and in making forms where none exist' Photograph: Royal Academy

Anish Kapoor with his sculpture Yellow Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

A woman looks into an stainless steel sculpture entitled Vertigo Photograph: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

A gallery-goer is reflected in one of Kapoor's mirror-polished stainless-steel sculptures Photograph: Johnny Green/PA

Untitled by Anish Kapoor Photograph: Nils Jorgensen /Rex Features

Names by Anish Kapoor Photograph: Nils Jorgensen /Rex Features

Hive by Anish Kapoor Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Anish Kapoor is at the Royal Academy from 26 September to 11 December 2009 Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/Christian Sinibaldi