Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West

Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West at the Gardner Museum, co-curated with Zehra Jumabhoy, is an invitation to see the world as Raqib Shaw sees it: “An amalgamation, a hybrid, a cocktail.” As they arrive at the Museum, visitors will be greeted by newly commissioned work on the Anne H. Fitzpatrick façade, and in the Palace’s Fenway Gallery, visitors can dive into Shaw’s process. Then, in the Hostetter Gallery, explore twelve-years worth of paintings in which, like Shaw’s view of the world: “The more you look, the more it will reward you.”

Raqib Shaw is an internationally renowned painter, whose work echoes across centuries and continents articulating a dialogue between East and West. Based in London, the artist lived most of his childhood in the Indian city of Srinagar, a ‘Heaven on Earth’ encircled by Himalayan mountains, lakes, and magical gardens. The Kashmir he knew as a child no longer exists, marred by political insurgencies. For Shaw, Kashmir represents a trampled Eden—a paradise lost—and references to the beauty and trauma of his childhood abound in his work.

Shaw’s paintings are flamboyant, fantastical, and extremely labor-intensive. They are puzzles that always include certain key ingredients: self-portraiture, landscapes in peril, references to historic painting, or moments from his own life. Shaw frequently depicts himself as satyr, a joker, a saint, a philosopher, or a blue-skinned divinity clad in sumptuous robes. The sensuous, glossy intensity of the jewel-like painting surface is rendered in infinite colors and shades with a painstaking technique—enamel paint, applied with porcupine quills to birch wood panels.

Image: Raqib Shaw, La Tempesta (After Giorgione), 2019–21. © Raqib Shaw. Private Collection. Photo © Raqib Shaw and (White Cube) Theo Christelis.

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