Raqib Shaw

Deitch Projects, New York
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2006

London, Tate Britain, Art Now: Raqib Shaw, 2006

The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the illustration fails to convey the sparkling quality of the gemstones in the original. This work is in very good condition.
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"My earliest.mes mory of Kashmir is that of colour - all kinds of flowers, totally uncoordinated. Being a loner, I used to live in an imaginary world, had invisible friends - most of them gods and goddesses from Hindu mythology"
The artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Deitch Projects, Raqib Shaw ~ Garden of Earthly Delights, 2005, n.p.

Central to Raqib Shaw's 2006 breakthrough exhibition at the Tate Britain in London, the present work is a unique and iconic paragon within the artist's kaleidoscopic and surreal body of work. Adorned with precious stones, the mythical half-animal, half-human creatures are meticulously remodelled in order to appear strikingly and absurdly realistic and playfully grotesque. Charged with erotic tension, Maquette explicitly incarnates Shaw's celebration of carnal pleasure and challenges boundaries of morality. Maquette's subject is wholly representative of Shaw's oeuvre and a cardinal element of the artist's celebrated and monumental painting, Garden of Earthly Delight X, 2004, which holds a permanent place in the collects ion of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Born in Calcutta and brought up in the cultural wealth of Kashmir, Raqib Shaw's ancestry plays a central role in the creation of his elaborate and labour-intense works. "Kashmir" Shaw says, "was named paradise by the Mughal emperor Jehangir, who said 'If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here'" (Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Museum of Modern Art, Without Boundary: Seventeen Ways of Looking, p. 16). Themes of utopia or paradise and extreme pleasure are central to Shaw's work, the pinnacle being the Garden of Earthly Delights series. Drawing on sources from the eastern cultures of India, China and Japan, Shaw employs designs and patterns recalling Oriental carpets, Persian miniatures and Jamevar shawls. His influences from Japan include Hokusai prints, byobu (screens), urushi (lacquer ware) and uchikake (wedding kimonos). However, he denies any kind of geographical categorization, claiming that "My work has nothing to do with what Kashmir stands for because in a sense as a child I had so many influences. My parents are Muslim, my teachers were Hindu scholars and I went to a Christian school, and historically Kashmir was Buddhist" (Ibid.).

Of Indian and Kashmiri descent, but having studied at St Martins College in London, Shaw here masterfully fuses cultural influences from the East and West. Maquette springs from the artist's re-interpretation of the historical iconography of Ovid's  Metamorphosis, which the artist had the chance to admire in London's National Gallery in great paintings such as Titian's Diane and Actaeon and Leda and the Swan after Michelangelo.

Although Shaw's scene appears to be highly fictional, there is very little invented in his creations - often visiting the Natural History Museum, Shaw studies different varieties of flora and fauna to incorporate into his work. Ultimately, Shaw's composition embodies an endless fascination with culture, weaving together elements from different worlds to compose a stunning artwork of the Twenty First Century.