M HKA Ensembles

Photography, 6 × (15.2 × 16.2 cm).

Collection: Gagosian, Los Angeles (Inv. no. JSHAW 1978.0002).

The UFO Photos series was part of Jim Shaw's graduate project at CalArts/California Institute of the Arts in 1978. The 1970s saw a large increase in the number of UFO sightings in the United States and more specifically in California. People became obsessed with alien encounters and their reporting. With these heavily retouched photos, Shaw ironically alludes to the often poor quality of 'photographic evidence' image manipulation, done to proof the existence of extraterrestrial life in popular media. Shaw observes how, in times of uncertainty and distrust in politics, we project our fears on inexplicable phenomena such as observations of extraterrestrial life, spiritual experiences, or conspiracy theories. In the Martian Portraits, which was also part of his graduation project, Shaw shows the transformation of humans into reptilian aliens. The idea, more than a century old, that the world is controlled by evil reptiles has regularly resurfaced in recent decades under the influence of conspiracy theorists such as Zecharia Sitchin and David Vaughan Icke.

“In the 1970s, when I was starting out, it was the era of the disaster film and also of close encounters. It was like people wanted the end to happen because reality was so fucking boring.”