Multilayered movie histories were in abundance both on and off the canvas at the opening, on Wednesday night (18 November), of Jim Shaw’s exhibition at Simon Lee Gallery. The US artist’s latest works are painted on salvaged film and theatre backdrops from the 1940s and 1950s, perhaps in oblique reference to the early years spent by Shaw working in Hollywood’s special effects department. The show’s largest and most expensive work is a hybrid Hollywood-ized version of St George and the Dragon. Shaw presents the dragon-slaying saint as John Wayne, in the role of Genghis Khan from Howard Hughes’s 1956 turkey The Conqueror, with Susan Hayward as Wayne’s Tatar love-interest portrayed as the about-to-be rescued princess.
Up in the top right hand corner of the canvas, an airborne Howard Hughes looks shiftily down at the large mushroom cloud blooming over the coils of the serpent: for not only was The Conqueror a notorious critical flop, but its Utah location was also highly toxic. The area had been severely contaminated by nearby government nuclear tests and was subsequently blamed for an abnormally high incidence of cancers in cast and crew. Given these very specific references, it was therefore serendipitous that the guest who, by chance, ended up sitting opposite Shaw at the post-PV dinner, was Danny Huston. The son of John, and half brother of Anjelica Huston, is not only Hollywood royalty but who also appeared in The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed 2004 biopic of Howard Hughes. Whether Shaw’s St George ends up hanging on his wall remains to be seen.
