Jim Shaw

Upstairs

Metro Pictures presents The Family Romance, an exhibition of five new paintings by Jim Shaw in the upstairs gallery. Known for blending personal, political, and surreal narratives, Shaw explores the realm of behavioral psychology and themes surrounding the family unit–– which he describes as “the beloved core of the American dream.” The title of the exhibition refers to a psychological complex identified by Sigmund Freud in 1908, whereby a young child or adolescent fantasizes that they are really the children of parents of higher social standing than their actual parents. Shaw recalls doing this himself as a child, although, in his words, he “claimed to have been switched at birth and was really a Martian.”