Jim Shaw: O

by Jim Shaw (Artist), Allan Sekula (Photographer), Doug Harvey (Contributor)

It's a particularly American notion: If you don't like your religion, invent one of your own. That's exactly what Jim Shaw has done. This publication is dedicated to full documentation of this new body of work, developed since 2001 in installations, paintings, video, and drawings, concerning Oism, the religion that Shaw provides with a back story to the mid-19th century. As Shaw describes it: "Oism's beliefs included the notion of a female deity, of time going backwards, spiritual transience, and a prohibition on figurative art." Shaw's Oist-inspired works include a series of abstract paintings presented as the work of the Adam O. Goodman, an Oist painter, along with his archives of "forbidden" figurative imagery; The Donner Party, supposedly by Oist artist Mandy Omaha, a dead-on spit-take of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party, only with cannibalistic treats at the place settings; and movie poster paintings announcing hypothetical Oist epics. Funny and shocking, o adds yet another volume to Shaw's continuing investigation of American culture and its assumptions.

64 pages, Hardcover

First published August 15, 2005

About the author

Jim Shaw is a contemporary American artist.He received his B.F.A. from University of Michigan in 1974 and his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 1978.