A Conversation With Ray Johnson By John Held Jr

Best Solo/Museum Show: 2013 Liberta Award

More here: http://www.theartblog.org/2013/12/the-2013-liberta-awards/

Banksy Wall With Security Guard: Art Miami 2013

Banksy wall complete with security guard. Yes, there's everything at the world largest art orgy. Photo: Casey Gleghorn/Converge Gallery.

JIM SHAW'S THE HIDDEN WORLD – THE CHALET SOCIETY, PARIS

The very brilliant Jim Shaw opens his private collection of Christian, Mormon and Scientology literature, his Ad Reinhardt Art World Comic book and a host of images about the hidden world around us – all captured in 50s, 60s and 70s technicolor. Amazing. All at The Chalet Society, 14 Blvd Raspail 75006 Paris, France.  Photos by: Pierre.

Simon (right) was making silkscreens from Jim Shaw's archive of hiddenness, gorgeous.  Each silkscreen print sells for 20 euros.  Get one or two or 10. Each is stamped and numbered.

The exhibition fills most of the spaces in a fluid display of books and posters and photographs, each smartly placed on the lovingly destroyed walls of The Chalet Society, a former Catholic girls school in the heart of Paris, just off of Blvd St Germain.

The Fiorricci Angels are from a detail from end of painting Ad Reinhardt's witty cartoon portfolio explaining and skewering the art world with clever insights and spot on drawings.  Shaw apparently picked up the 1975 portfolio on sale somewhere.  We should note that a previous post on Store Front Windows we featured Yale University Art Department Head Robert Storr giving a good half-hour yak on this very subject at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City.

The Hidden World is typical Jim Shaw.  The artist seems to walk through the world picking up anything that seems pure but it is totally extreme.  Shaw's collection is a Good Will of specifics: colorful kids' encyclopedias (like the ones I had as a 60s child), anatomy prints, pictures of Goofus and Gallant and of course tons of Bible Posters. The exhibition also has a do-it-yourself put your name on a log (for only 30 euros, see photo above), a ceramic workshop for children, silkscreen souvenirs, and a promotional card by the art collective The Bells Angels.  The Catalog includes some of Jim Shaw's Didactic Art Collection gems, and the little 3 euro book is a limited edition (only 500).

He has pioneered the curator as artist profile and there's no one better at it.

 See more detail from this totally unexpected exhibition (in French and English) and bear in mind that it was Jim Shaw who launched the phenomenal Thrift Store Paintings show at Metro Pictures in New York way back in the 20th Century.  So ... get on a plane to Paris before The Hidden World closes on 29 December 2013.