Jim Shaw

I’m drawn towards things that are weird—that show you something about America.
—Jim Shaw

Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition of drawings by Jim Shaw at Park & 75, New York. Made between 2012 and 2024, the works find the artist continuing his journey through the maelstrom of American society, taking inspiration from such sources as vintage advertisements and borrowing from the aesthetics of comic books and album covers. They feature images of complex forms such as trees and hair; references to popular culture and counterculture; surreal representations of the artist’s dreams; and allusions to bizarre religious cults and political conspiracies.

In the works on view Shaw details scenarios from the domestic to the fantastical, often combining elements of both. “Most of these drawings,” he explains, “involve nostalgia for advertising images from a period when the single image was staged and fetishized.” Study for “Rinse Cycle” (2012)—one of two works in color in the exhibition—was derived from a 1950s washing machine ad and portrays the wraithlike abstracted forms of clothing dancing around a central agitator.