The Hidden World
Jim Shaw / Didactic Art Collection
October 25–December 29, 2013
Chalet Society
14 Boulevard Raspail
75007 Paris
Hours: noon–8pm
Secret societies, far-fetched orders and fraternities, evangelical and fundamentalist movements, New Age spiritualists or all kinds of conspirators, encyclopaedias for children and even Dr. Netter’s famous medical illustrations—Jim Shaw is exhibiting his incredible collection of didactic art that accounts for his main source of inspiration.
Renowned for his striking paintings, drawings, videos, installations and performances, Jim Shaw is also a compulsive collector, constantly on the hunt for pop culture pieces in thrift stores or on the internet. The exhibition at the Chalet Society gives visitors the chance to dive into an overflowing and illuminated world of paintings, sculptures, brochures, T-shirts, books, CDs and educational material, that recycle the myths and beliefs of America.
The Chalet Society is thus pursuing the premise of its programming. After ‘outsider’ artists of the Museum of Everything, the boundaries of artistic design are pushed back to reveal artists who while producing for specific commissions have often got lost behind their intentions. The carte blanche to Jim Shaw enables to play with the boxes which art sometimes gets put in and test its eclecticism, its versatility and its ability to provide unexpected areas of expertise.
The Chalet Society is a project founded by Marc-Olivier Wahler, designed to encourage new reflection on the contemporary art institution. Its mobile structure endeavours to develop formats that work on a variety of platforms, similarly to software capable of working with any hardware.
The Chalet Society reacts to the boldest artistic settings and acts as a community space for artists, collectors, researchers, and other enthusiasts searching for “poetic consciousness”—an idea developed by Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen, King of Poland crowned in 1587. He reigned for only one night, but it was sufficient time to pronounce several predictions and call for the dawn of poetic consciousness.
The Chalet Society has taken over a unique site in Paris: a 1,000-square-meter abandoned school provided by the Emerige Group.
Launched in October 2012, the Chalet Society attracted over 65,000 visitors to an exhibition of the Museum of Everything. The exhibition brought together a variety of extraordinary self-taught and/or unknown artists. It revealed a facet of artistic creation that has been growing for a century outside artistic institutions.
From July to September 2013, the Chalet Society invited Christophe Kihm, Arnaud and Bertrand Dezoteux to design Atelier des Testeurs, a space open to young artists and theoreticians where they could carry out tests dedicated principally to the exhibition formats. During two months, over 40 artists tested the forms, spaces, discourses, and protocols, in order to investigate new possibilities of exhibition. The results of these experimentations were presented at the Testers’ Salon in September at Chalet Society’s Parisian home.
During The Hidden World exhibition, the Chalet Society will present a weekly program of special events, artists’ workshops, designed in partnership with Hmm! and Théodore Fivel. A special collaboration with Family Business, an initiative by Maurizio Cattelan et Massimiliano Gioni and curated by Nadja Argyropoulou, will feature a program of seminars, lectures, performances.
With support of Emerige, the partner of the exhibition and of the Chalet Society.
In partnership with Hmm! & Saywho.
