Jim Shaw: Thinking the Unthinkable

Thinking the Unthinkable documents Jim Shaw’s inaugural exhibition with Gagosian and features an essay by Jessica Beck, new fiction from Jonathan Lethem, and a conversation between the artist and Rachel Kushner.

For over three decades, Jim Shaw has found inspiration in comics, pulp novels, album covers, and amateur paintings. His densely layered and humorous works span painting, drawing, and sculpture, and juxtapose images of friends, family, and dreams, with world events, pop culture, and alternative realities.

Published to coincide with Thinking the Unthinkable (2023) in Beverly Hills, Shaw’s first exhibition with Gagosian, this expansive and vibrantly illustrated catalogue delves into the secret histories of psychedelic therapy, Hollywood legend, and nuclear war—themes that all coalesce in the artist’s recent works.

An essay by Gagosian director Jessica Beck discusses Shaw’s hallucinogenic depictions of Cary Grant, Esther Williams, and Jeff Chandler. A conversation with author Rachel Kushner ranges from the artist’s formative years to the early weaponization of LSD. In Jim Shaw Kills, new fiction written by Jonathan Lethem, a miniaturized version of Shaw is dispatched into the comatose body of an ex-president.