Shahryar Nashat:
Raw Is the Red

Photo by Jeff McLane. Courtesy of Sylvia Kouvali, Piraeus / London; Gladstone Gallery, New York / Brussels; David Kordansky, Los Angeles / New York

Raw Is the Red by Shahryar Nashat transforms the roof terrace of Aspen Art Museum into a sculptural confrontation framed by the commanding presence of Aspen Mountain. At its center stands a vitrine encasing a “meat object,” an image of raw flesh on powder-coated steel, covered in a translucent layer of acrylic gel. Behind it rises a pink marble obelisk whose scale is that of the artist’s own height. Together, they evoke the body as both physical presence and mental projection, as a carrier of both empathy and distance.

This is the second presentation of Raw Is the Red, which was first shown on the Bluhm Family Terrace at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022. In Chicago, the work appeared against a skyline of glass and steel; in Aspen, it meets snowy inclines and winter skies. This contrast between urban architecture and mountain landscape turns the sculptures into stand-ins for human bodies poised against powerful natural forces.

Tones of reds and pinks punctuate the muted winter palette, while mirrored panels fold the environment back into the installation. Raw Is the Red becomes both display and dissection—an image of vulnerability and endurance rendered in sculptural form.

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Shahryar Nashat: Raw Is the Red was curated by Jordan Carter, curator and co-department head at Dia Art Foundation, and Susanne Ghez, adjunct curator in Modern and Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. It is organized at Aspen Art Museum by Stella Bottai, Senior Curator at Large and Daniel Merritt, Chief Curator, with Gemma Goette, Curatorial Assistant

Special thanks to Kevin Haynie

Aspen Art Museum wishes to thank Sylvia Kouvali, Gladstone, David Kordansky Gallery

Unless otherwise stated, all photography by Dan Bradica

Aspen Art Museum exhibitions are made possible by the Marx Exhibition Fund.

Support for artists is made possible by the Beckmann Kotzubei Artist Residency Fund, Major support is provided by Aspen Art Museum Exhibition Circle, with special thanks to Daniel English, Nancy Magoon, H. Gael Neeson, Cecilia and Ernesto Poma, Katie and Amnon Rodan, Allison Rose, Gayle Stoffel, and Mary Zlot.

General exhibition support is provided by the Toby Devan Lewis Visiting Artist Fund. Additional support is provided by Aspen Art Museum National Council.

About the Artist
Shahryar Nashat has been the subject of solo presentations at institutions including Istituto Svizzero, Rome (2024–25); MASI Lugano, Switzerland (2024); Art Institute of Chicago (2023); Renaissance Society, Chicago (2023); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2020); Swiss Institute, New York (2019); and Kunsthalle Basel (2017). Recent group exhibitions include Ghost2568, DIB26, Bangkok (2025); Ecstatic: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2023); Swiss Sculpture Since 1945, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland (2021); and Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016). His work is in the permanent collections of institutions including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Kunsthaus Zürich; Art Institute of Chicago; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.