RAQIB SHAW
Pace Gallery
508, 510, 534 West 25th Street
New York, NY
November 8 – January 11
Pace Gallery presents Paradise Lost, a three-venue exhibition of London-based Kashmiri artist Raqib Shaw. This makes his first public presentation in New York since the 2008 exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Opulent scenes of beastly anthropomorphic figures amidst fantastical worlds of idyllic skies and classical ruins fill Shaw’s first exhibition at three venues at Pace.
Included in the exhibition are ten paintings, three sculptures, and five drawings. Based on the theme of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, they are a fusion of Indian mythological figures, hybrids of man and beast, warring in landscapes inspired by Quattrocento and Renaissance painting. They are a synthesis of Indian miniatures painted with precision and delicacy and Western classical architecture inspired by Carlo Crivelli’s The Annunciation in the National Gallery, London. Shaw’s series can be interpreted as a direct confrontation between East and West where the shattered monuments suggest the triumph of the East.
Paradise Lost will be on view from November 8, 2013 through January 11, 2014. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Thursday, November 7 from 6 to 8 PM. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition and include an essay by art historian Sir Norman Rosenthal.
Born in Calcutta and educated in London, Shaw’s oeuvre is unique amongst his contemporaries. As Rosenthal writes in the catalogue, Shaw creates, “truly modern transformations of lost worlds of culture,” that arise from, “the exotic gardens of Kashmir to the memories that lie ‘imprisoned’ in the great museums of the Western World.”
