Art in America - March 2016_

140 MARCH 2016 EXHIBITION REVIEWS

spans many mediums in works that resemble everything from

trippy album cover psychedelia to comic book covers to naive

erotica.he series is a personal allegory of sorts, conveying a loose,

abstract narrative about the coming of age of a Midwestern boy.

Taken together, the works in the series chart a voyage from inno-

cence, through frenzied sexual discovery, to spiritual redemption in

a New Agey cult setting, but what’s most impressive is the way each

work mimics a style of illustration the protagonist would be either

making or looking at during that particular stage of life.he visual

complexity of each piece is engrossing, as inBilly Goes to a Love-In

(1991), which details a misbegotten night in comic panels.he

comic, which atirst seems slightly misshapen, is “tattooed” over the

entirety of a young man’s tightly cropped chest and abdomen, the

outlines of the panels following the contours of his nipples and pecs.

In what is one of the most singular and generous parts of the

show, Shaw gave over an entire loor to the display of his collec-

tions, with one gallery devoted to thrift store paintings and another

to religious paraphernalia. he trove of thrift store paintings, irst

shown in a public library in California in 1990 and then at New

York’s Metro Pictures gallery in 1991, has become one of the most

iconic collections of objets trouvés of recent decades, in large part

because of the drily observant titles that Shaw has applied. Works

likeAbuelita Cooking Tiny Foodhave a deadpan hilarity, as the title

makes the incongruous scale of the cook and her food seem willed

rather than accidental. Most of the paintings are unattributed; for

those that are signed, Shaw included the name of the artist on a

laminated guide sheet that contained details about all of the found

paintings on view, as he did withFast Food Last Supper, by Dan

Anderson. Without Shaw’s highlighting of the barely sketched-in

semi-igurative cloudscape above a cacophonous pile of fast food

joints we would miss the painter’s religious message. he range

of interests on exhibit in these works is encyclopedic, from self-

pleasuring irst ladies to loating yard toys, but the hanging and

titling managed to give each piece the dignity of its intention.

he densely installed collection of religious and oddball politi-

cal pamphlets, record covers, banners and books in the next gallery

pointed to another strand of Americana that informs Shaw’s prac-

tice. he various religious messages include brimstone warnings,

tarot symbols and Mormon photo essays on proper comportment.

Some of the religious pamphlets and signs include expressions of

sympathy with Lyndon LaRouche and other crackpot politicians.

A display of such material in a temple of secular cool like the New

Museum could seem like a patronizing anthropology of kitsch. Yet

the sheerefort and commitment that Shaw put into his collection

obviates any ironic overtones; the display functions instead as a

thorough guide to a highly complex mythos that is as widespread

in the U.S. of A. as it is outside mainstream culture. Shaw ended

up inventing his own religious cult, with backstory, called Oism,

leshed out here in a painting, a video and photos that lack the

fervid weirdness of the real things next-door.

he top loor featured huge paintings on reclaimed theater

backdrops, with some propped up as stage lats. By the time we

got to this part of the retrospective, the wide range of bor-

rowed images, from elastic superheroes to mid-century political

cartoonist Herblock to Charles Philipon’s 1831 caricatures of a

pear-headed King Louis-Philippe, added up to a familiar cast. At

his best Shaw uses such imagery to surprisingly intimate ends;

here, one missed the heart-wrenching personal follies that he

communicates through the common culture.

—Julian Kreimer

NEW YORK

ROBERT SMITHSON

James Cohan

James Cohan Gallery opened its new space on the Lower East

Side with an exhibition of seldom-seen drawings and sculptural

assemblages made by Robert Smithson between 1963 and 1964,

several years before he produced his renowned earthworks and

trailblazing essays. It was fascinating to see what Smithson was

up to at this time, when he was becoming a mainstay of the

downtown New York art scene. he drawings, made chiely with

pencil, colored pencil, crayon, marker and collage elements and

constituting the bulk of the presentation, feature lots of people,

mostly nude, although often accessorized with leather fetish gear,

sunglasses and hats. Motorcycles abound, as do cartoonish zigzags

and amoebalike shapes.

Smithson’s igures, which look like elegant doodles, don’t

come across as individuals but as archetypes. InUntitled (Pink

Linoleum Center), a woman in nothing but a cowgirl hat rides a

horse while a man wearing boots and a purple police cap gracefully

urinates into a cup held by a nude male angel. Many of Smithson’s

igures sport angel wings, resulting in a conlation of spirit and

body, the sacred and the profane. he various iguresin each work

Robert Smithson:
Untitled (Man in
Colonial American
Dress and Indian),
1963, mixed
mediums with
collageonpaper,
30 by 22 inches;
at James Cohan.
©Holt-Smithson
Foundation.
Licensed by VAGA,
New York.