142 drawings realized over a decade, addressing the commitments, obsessions, and conceptual territories that drive Jim Shaw's practice.
Since the late 1970s, Jim Shaw has developed a rich and multifaceted body of work that includes photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptures, installations, films, and musical performances. The publication
The Ties That Bind addresses the commitments, obsessions, and conceptual territories that drive Jim Shaw's practice: morality, fictional narratives, conspiracy theories, power dynamics and patriarchy, hair, and forms of cultural production, to name a few. Conceived on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at M HKA, Antwerp, the publication collects 142 drawings realized between 2013 and 2023. The essays by Calla Henkel and
Mark von Schlegell accompany the images, projecting the reader into a fictional dimension interwined with Shaw's practice, relying on his drawings as a backdrop of territories, scenes, characters, and ideas onto which they could project their own narrative.
Jim Shaw (born 1952 in Midland, Michigan, lives and works in Los Angeles) is an atypical figure in the
Californian art world, sharing with
Paul McCarthy and
Mike Kelley a similar desire to produce an immersive visual oeuvre aimed at exploring the dark side of the American psyche.
