Jim Shaw (born in 1952) is an American artist. His work is held in the collections of the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York.

Education

Shaw received his B.F.A. from

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

in 1974 and his M.F.A. from the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

in 1978.

Work

Shaw invented O-ism, a pseudo-religion. In 2002, at the

Swiss Institute Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York (SI) is an independent non-profit contemporary art organization founded in 1986. SI is located at 38 St Marks Pl, the corner of Second Avenue and St Marks Place in the East Village neighborhood of Manhatt ...

in New York, he exhibited the fictitious studio and paintings of the imaginary O-ist painter "Adam O. Goodman" (or "Archie Gunn"). In 2000 he showed ''Thrift Store Paintings''—a collection of paintings by (mostly anonymous) American amateur artists—at the ICA in London.

Adrian Searle Adrian Searle (born 1953 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire) is the chief art critic of ''The Guardian'' newspaper in Britain, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter. Life and career Searle studied at the St ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' said "The paintings are awful, indefensible, crapulous…", "these people can't draw, can't paint; these people should never be left alone with a paintbrush", and "The Thrift Store Paintings are fascinating, alarming, troubled and funny. Scary too, just like America.""What the Critics Say – Jim Shaw at the ICA", newsletter 2, artrumour.com, October 23, 2000
Retrieved March 28, 2006. For Sarah Kent of ''Time Out'': "Critics professing to be gobsmacked by these efforts can never have seen an amateur art show or walked along the railings of the Bayswater road. They should get out more." In 2012 ''Rinse Cycle'', a

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

, was shown at the

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (also known simply as (the) Baltic, stylised as BALTIC) is a centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England. It hosts a frequently changing variety ...

, in Gateshead in northern England. In 2013 the Chalet Society in Paris showed ''Jim Shaw: Archives'', a selection of items from his collection of amateur art, junk and memorabilia; no original artwork by Shaw was shown. In 2015/16 a survey exhibition, ''Jim Shaw: The End is Here'', was exhibited at the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...

in New York. In 2017 his show ''The Wig Museum'' was the first to be shown at the

Marciano Art Foundation The Marciano Art Foundation (formally named the Maurice and Paul Marciano Art Foundation) was a non-profit arts foundation located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Mid-Wilshire neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was established by the co-fou ...

in Los Angeles.

Collections

Shaw's work is held in the following permanent collection: *

, New York: 8 works (as of 4 October 2022) *

, New York: 28 works (as of 4 October 2022)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Jim Living people 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Art in Greater Los Angeles Painters from California Artists from Michigan Musicians from Michigan University of Michigan alumni California Institute of the Arts alumni 1952 births Destroy All Monsters (band) members 20th-century American male artists