Curated by Enrique Juncosa
Combining gay liberation and globalism, Bhupen Khakhar, like the equally queer and ethnic Mexican painter Nahum Zenil, couldn’t be more PC. Born in Bombay in 1934, he came out of the closet in the ’80s, depicting his new self both in heaven and on earth. If his local deities had all those arms and all that sex, why shouldn’t he paint a runny-nosed man with five penises or a male couple (one old, one young) in Nirvana? His free-floating, neon-glowing fantasies have many Western connections, too. David Hockney was an inspiration and Howard Hodgkin an ardent fan. Enrique Juncosa curates this thirty-five painting show of work from the last thirty years, whose catalogue sports an essay by Khakhar’s friend Salman Rushdie.
