The Garden of Earthly Delights V
ca. 2004
Raqib Shaw creates a dizzying underwater world both fantastical and campy, where hybrid animal and humanoid creatures coexist with other aquatic life. The title of Shaw’s piece is borrowed from Hieronymous Bosch’s famous triptych, in which the central panel overflows with earthly pleasures in a lush garden and the panel to the right depicts eternal punishment. Shaw collapses Bosch’s panels into one aqueous underworld, where pleasure and pain are intertwined. Beneath Shaw’s kitsch aesthetic lies his personal sorrow and his memories of fleeing Kashmir with his family. His idea of paradise is thus grounded in the physical and real space of Kashmir.
Mixed media on board
47 5/8 x 83 7/8 in. (121 x 213cm)
Gift of Rebecca and Alexander Stewart
2004.97
