“French economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013) examined wealth and inequality, reaching number one on The New York Times Best Seller List in 2014. The book became required reading for policy wonks and politicians like Barack Obama in the aftermath of the crash of 2008.
Clearly in the years since then inequality has only increased and one manifestation of this is the demand for fashionable contemporary art from the booming billionaire class. LET THEM EAT ART (2016) observes and reflects this zeitgeist by using the sculpted visual language of neon to frame the universal format of civil protest - the placard.”
Shah (b 1959, British Indian) is a multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Dubai. He was born in Aden (Yemen) when it was a British Colony. His family emigrated to Bombay in 1967, as the British left and a Marxist paramilitary group formed the new People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. After school in Bombay until 1975 he was educated in the UK and lived in London till 2013. He has an MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.
Image: Mukesh Shaw, Let them Eat Art, 2016, neon mounted on Perspex, H1000 mm x W400 mm x D100 mm, edition of 6 + 2AP.
Courtesy and ©Mukesh Shaw and Renee Pfister Art & Gallery Consultancy, 2023.
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