Lush, brilliantly imagined, often-erotic images that easily traverse a hypersaturated media landscape.
Exhibition Dates
Jul 21, 2022 - Jan 10, 2023
Indulgent is a revitalization of Warhol’s insistence that “everybody must have a fantasy,” the exhibition is an invitation. Shields has gone beyond mere imagination, adeptly conjuring his own fantasies, rendering daydreams in pristine photographic prints and enticing the viewer to indulge. With only three of each print in existence, the photography varies in content from luxury drugs and sexually charged gestures to a $15,000 Louis Vuitton chest engulfed in flames. The artifice inherent in the images’ varied constructions – highly staged moments, often framed against the negative space of a studio backdrop – lends the exhibition an abstract dreaminess. Rather than generating desire towards some external commodity or lifestyle (as with advertising), each image is an articulation of desire itself.
The artist’s partner and key collaborator, Allie Evans, frequently appears as the female protagonist in Shields’ works. The photographs themselves vary in content from luxury drugs and sexually charged gestures to a $15,000 Louis Vuitton chest engulfed in flame. The artifice inherent in the images’ varied constructions–highly staged moments, often framed against the negative space of a studio backdrop–lends the exhibition an abstract dreaminess. Rather than generating desire towards some external commodity or lifestyle (as with advertising), each image is an articulation of desire itself.
