Raqib Shaw
19 Aug - 27 Sep 2009
© Raqib Shaw
... And His Tears of Blood Will Drown the Cities of Men II, 2008
Photo: Todd-White Art Photography, Courtesy White Cube
... And His Tears of Blood Will Drown the Cities of Men II, 2008
Photo: Todd-White Art Photography, Courtesy White Cube
RAQIB SHAW
"Absence of God"
KUNSTHALLE wien project space
August 19th - September 27th, 2009
„It is natural for me to seek ways to create a bubble, because I want to live in that space outside society and demography.“
Raqib Shaw’s work is paradise and hell all in one – a lavish creation of worlds in the face of lacking religious systems. “God is dead” would probably be the Occidental Nietzschean equivalent to Shaw’s morality of liberated art in the absence of God. Violence and perversion, excess and beauty intertwine in the ornamentally and meticulously executed works of the artist, who was born in Calcutta in 1974. His phantasmagorias, whose surfaces catch our eye with their subtle chasing, enamel, glitter, and gold, are peopled by hybrid creatures which are half man and half beast, such as the blind butterfly catcher. They recall the decadence of the fin de siècle and historical positions like those of Holbein and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
In the Kunsthalle Wien project space, the artist, who lives in London, shows new works from his series Absence of God in combination with his sculpture Adam.
Curator: Angela Stief
A catalogue with a text by Homi K. Bhabha and an interview with the artist conducted by Gerald Matt and Angela Stief will be published to accompany the exhibition.
"Absence of God"
KUNSTHALLE wien project space
August 19th - September 27th, 2009
„It is natural for me to seek ways to create a bubble, because I want to live in that space outside society and demography.“
Raqib Shaw’s work is paradise and hell all in one – a lavish creation of worlds in the face of lacking religious systems. “God is dead” would probably be the Occidental Nietzschean equivalent to Shaw’s morality of liberated art in the absence of God. Violence and perversion, excess and beauty intertwine in the ornamentally and meticulously executed works of the artist, who was born in Calcutta in 1974. His phantasmagorias, whose surfaces catch our eye with their subtle chasing, enamel, glitter, and gold, are peopled by hybrid creatures which are half man and half beast, such as the blind butterfly catcher. They recall the decadence of the fin de siècle and historical positions like those of Holbein and Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
In the Kunsthalle Wien project space, the artist, who lives in London, shows new works from his series Absence of God in combination with his sculpture Adam.
Curator: Angela Stief
A catalogue with a text by Homi K. Bhabha and an interview with the artist conducted by Gerald Matt and Angela Stief will be published to accompany the exhibition.