© Raqib Shaw - Photo - © White Cube - Theo Christelis
“Raqib Shaw’s paintings allow the viewer to travel between the wondrous natural beauties of Kashmir and the arguably more prosaic worlds of South London. There, however, the artist has constructed his own memory paradise that has views onto distant city palaces or cathedral-like towers. Executed with a meticulously detailed and uniquely calibrated sense of both drawing and colour, calculated to astonish, each painting demands time to discover evermore on further looking”.
Sir Norman Rosenthal
curator
Galleria Internazionale d'Arte Moderna Ca' Pesaro
Raqib Shaw - Palazzo della Memoria
At Ca’ Pesaro, in collaboration with White Cube the exhibition of new paintings by Raqib Shaw, entitled - Palazzo della Memoria - until September 25 - curated by Sir Norman Rosenthal. The selection, featuring twelve works produced over the past two years, draws on works by several of the great Venetian artists, to reflect on the loss of homeland and the state of exile. Shaw, who was raised in Kashmir and now lives and works in London,creates intensely worked, finely detailed paintings that depict parallel, visionary worlds suffused with deep personal and psychological meaning. Often monumental in scale, they combine hybrid influences: from Old Master paintings to the tradition of the miniature, from the poetry of Ovidto the Persian and Indian Islamic culture to which he belongs, condensing time and space to traverse landscapes, seasons, myths and epochs.
Raqib Shaw
Shrinking Lease of the Summer of 2020 - after Tintoretto - 2020-22
Acrylic liner and enamel on aluminium - 90.2 x 90 x 5 cm
© Raqib Shaw - Photo © White Cube -Todd-White Art Photography
The works conceived specifically for this exhibition at Ca’ Pesaro are often inspired byWestern European old master traditions, he was particularly influenced from the unique paintings found in Venice and Rome. These works take direct references from Giorgione’s famous La Tempesta - 1508c. - and paintings by Tintoretto that still reside in Venice today. Giovanni Paolo Pannini’s Picture Gallery with Views of Modern Rome - 1757 - is the inspiration for Shaw’s imaginary self-staged retrospective. This large-scale work - above - forms a centrepiece to the show, it depictics more than 60 miniaturised versions of his past paintings and sculptures in one image.
Raqib Shaw
The Retrospective 2002-2022 - 2015-22
Acrylic liner, enamel and rhinestones on aluminium - 214 x 270 cm
© Raqib Shaw. Photo © White Cube - Theo Christelis
In La Tempesta - after Giorgione - 2019-2021 - for example, the artist imagines himself in the place of the woman and child famously depicted within Giorgione’s stormy Venetian landscape. The painting, like others he has made in recent years, is presented as an incredibly detailed biographical journey through ordeals of fire and across time and geographical space; from Giorgione’s Venice, to modern London, to idealised, but also war-torn visions of his homeland in Kashmir.
Raqib Shaw
La Tempesta - after Giorgione - 2019-21
Acrylic liner and enamel on birch wood - 137 x 109 cm
© Raqib Shaw - Photo - © White Cube - Theo Christelis
Raqib Shaw’s transgressive vision is explored through highly personal imagery that is both opulent and fantastical. Combining iconography from both East and West, he draws, not only on a wide range of sources including art history, mythology, poetry, theatre, religion, science and natural history, but transforms the subject matter in his paintings by bringing in highly personal elements.
Raqib Shaw
Agony in the Garden - after Tintoretto - II - 2020-22
Acrylic liner and enamel on aluminium - 129.1 x 109.1 cm
photograph by Joseph Sinclair - courtesy White Cube
Raqib Shaw
© Raqib Shaw - Photo - © White Cube - Ollie Hammick
Raqib Shaw
Raqib Shaw - Palazzo della Memoria is an exhibition of paintings that depict a world full of intricate detail, rich colour, and bejewelled surfaces. They exemplify Shaw’s unique method of creating his works using enamel and industrial, metallic paints manipulated with a porcupine quill to fashion sharp detail and rich surface textures, including coral, feathers and flowers. Every motif is outlined in embossed gold, a technique similar to cloisonné used in early Asian pottery, a source of inspiration to the artist along with Uchikake - Japanese wedding kimonos, Byobu - Japanese folding screens - the prints of Hokusai, Kashmiri shawls, medieval heraldry and Persian miniatures, carpets and jewellery.
Raqib Shaw
Ode to the Country Without a Post Office - 2019-20
Acrylic liner and enamel on birch wood - 80 x 85 x 5.5 cm
Raqib Shaw
The Departure - After Tintoretto - 2021-22
The Final Submission in Fire on Ice - 2021-22
© Raqib Shaw - Photo - © White Cube - Theo Christelis
Raqib Shaw
The Final Submission in Fire on Ice - 2021-22 - detail
Acrylic liner and enamel on aluminium - 97.4 x 110 x 5.4 cm
