Art apocalypse
Jim Shaw distorts your senses: the cult American artist takes over the New Museum
Jim Shaw ‘Untitled’ (Distorted Faces Series), 1979. Collection the artist
On now at the New Museum in New York is an expansive exhibition dedicated to cult American artist Jim Shaw. Spanning his epic 40-year career and featuring his most iconic personal works alongside his collection of thrift store paintings and religious pedagogical material, it brings together a heavy hitting line up of works never before shown in the same space.
Shaw is the quintessential cult American artist. Obsessively dedicated to his dissection of US popular culture and counter culture, his works explore the collective psyche of this arguably bizarre nation. Amalgamating a plethora of neglected material, from comic books, to conspiracy magazines, to obscure iconography, he comments on the mess of myth, religion, materialism and madness we inhabit. Stirring a melting pot of culture, he attacks our senses and places us directly within our intensely saturated landscape – which right now, in 2015, couldn’t be more relevant.
GALLERY
The New Museum’s experience of three floors of Jim’s own drawings and amassed vernacular is overwhelming, and yet his creations stay safely away from the digital sphere, yet to tackle the shattering capacity of the internet. The sheer contemplation of that rabbit hole is dizzying.
From his intricate, extensive collection of pencil illustrations, to his epic scale banner installations, Shaw’s artistic skill demands awe. Every piece of his, equal parts soulful, and surreal. Goya-like etchings rub shoulders with Lynchian portraits, whilst Brueghel, Dali, Delacroix, Magritte intermingle and transcend their context. Appropriation can often be superficial, but the connotations Shaw provokes refreshingly remind us that because we all recognise these images, they are inside us all.
Jim Shaw ‘World of Pain’, 1991. Courtesy the artist and New Museum
Jim Shaw ‘Dream Object: Paperback Cover (I saw a guy falling into a giant membranous, disgusting throat or other orifice)’, 2008. Courtesy Galleria Massimo De Carlo, Milan/London
As the figures and simulacrums pile up, we become increasingly aware of the compulsive nature of his hyper pursuit, somewhat akin to a hoarder – yet we admire his dedication. The kitsch portraits he displays carry real human fictions, and we can thank him for unearthing and celebrating the surprising creative power of low culture.
In this exhibition we’re taken on a wild rainbow-coloured trip, complete with animals, intestines and naughty naked behaviour. Shaw exposes our subconscious, and pictoralises our weird desires, but remains morally ambiguous in his frank, unfiltered depiction. Shaw’s world is all sex, dreams and perversion – a Freudian explosion. But his visuals, however hallucinatory, stir a sense of familiarity similar to that of a strange dream. We’ve seen these images before, somewhere amidst the cacophony of stimulus we encounter each day.
Jim Shaw ‘Untitled’ (Distorted Faces Series), 1979. Collection the artist
Humans are image makers, desperate to create – whether it be through art, myth or social constructs. Shaw depicts this as unnerving, endearing, and ultimately absurd. The cultural debris we’ve left in our wake is both gross, and commendable, and it is difficult to imagine us ever stopping making stuff.
As the pace to comment quickens in our 21st century age, his overloaded menagerie presents a warning to our generation – could the end really be here?
‘Jim Shaw: The End is Here’ runs until 10th January at the New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002