The End Really is Here!

Jim Shaw is a major figure on the contemporary American art scene, whose work brings a strong surrealist spirit to his keen observation of US popular and political culture. For many years, in his paintings, installations and famous ‘Dream Drawings,' Shaw has been exploring the relationships between the dream world, conspiracy theories, mass culture and recent political history. His dark humour and sense of subversion transform familiar images—whether taken from advertising, comics or current events—into disconcerting critical visions.
Compiled in collaboration with Didier Ottinger, this series highlights Shaw's obsession with the figure of Donald Trump. Didier Ottinger writes that in it “he reveals his ‘method,' the secret of his art, which is to put books and images, fables and historical facts together in a magic hat, then dip his hand or brush into it and combine everything he extracts. Without hierarchy or discrimination, a monstrous database, the hat contains our knowledge. To create new myths, to untangle old stories, Jim Shaw turns the hat inside out and puts it on his head. The tiny threads that tie together art and politics, history and tragedy, reality and imagination flood his brain like the tiny jets of water from a shower head with a new size and unlimited flow.”
This monograph offers a journey on which surrealist imagination, conspiracy obsessions and contemporary myths all intersect. It highlights Shaw's ability to transform dreams, fantasies and fragments of popular culture into a critical fresco of contemporary America that is both funny and disturbing.