SWISS
INSTITUTE - CONTEMPORARY ART
Jim Shaw,
2002
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JIM
SHAW
THE GOODMAN IMAGE FILE AND STUDY
with Maria Marshall in the Lounge and Erik Parker in the Lobby
Opening, Saturday September 14, 6 - 8 PM
September 14 - October 26, 2002
SWISS INSTITUTE - CONTEMPORARY ART
495 Broadway, 3rd floor
New York, NY 10012
t: 212 925 2035
f: 212 925 2040
http://www.swissinstitute.net
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JIM SHAW
THE GOODMAN IMAGE FILE AND STUDY
SETPEMBER 14 - OCTOBER 26, 2002
Born in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York in the mid-1800s,
O-ism's beliefs included the notion of a female deity, of time going
backwards, of spiritual transience, and a prohibition on figurative art.
-J.S.
Jim Shaw's recent work has focused on inventing a new, pseudo-religion,
O-ism. Conceived as being founded contemporaneously with
Mormonism,
Shaw's O-ism centers around an unnamable goddess, referred to
only by an
O. For the SI, Shaw presents the work of an O-ist painter, Adam
O.
Goodman, whose mature work attempted to wed the mythic iconic essence of
late modernism to the demands of his spiritual beliefs. A fictional
historical tableau, The Goodman Image File and Study will
represent the
conceptualization of the iconoclastic controversy within this
pseudo-religion. Shaw will transform the SI into the imagined studio of
a
painter torn between the mythical purity of abstraction and the
profanity
of the representational image.
Seven circular, large-scale, color-field paintings will hang on the
walls
surrounding a seven-sided circular complex of drawers. Filed away in
the
cabinets will be the O-ist's massive image file, an obsessively ordered
compendium of decadent, kitch images from the popular press. His
modernist paintings, unrecognised during his lifetime, left Goodman with
no choice but to toil, secretly, in the lower levels of the commercial
arts. The files were created to aid his work as an illustrator, which
he
executed under the psuedonym Archie Gunn, thus hiding his figurative
work
from both his artist peers and fellow O-ists. Cloaked in American
mythology both of its puritanical religions and of the painters of the
New
York School, this exhibition follows Jim Shaw's inventiveness through
another investigation into the idea of the American artist.
Jim Shaw's exhibition at the Swiss Institute-Contemporary Art will open
on
September 14, which will coincide with the receptions for the autumn
exhibitions of all the Downtown Not-For-Profit Art Spaces. Also this
autumn, Metropictures Gallery will show a suite of Jim Shaw's O-ist
Thrift
Store Paintings.
In the lounge, the SI will present video work by up-and-coming British
artist MARIA MARSHALL. Concurrently with her solo show at the Team
Gallery
in Chelsea, the SI will present the video work Put Medication in his
Pocket.
Influenced by Rorschach drawings, genealogical charts and graffiti, New
York-based German painter, ERIK PARKER will make a special project, for
the SI's lobby at 495 Broadway.
for more information contact program@swissinstitute.net.
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