EAST LANSING, MI.- The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University has acquired Jim Shaw’s personal collection of religious and didactic art, The Hidden World, comprised of more than a thousand objects collected over the span of fifty years. The Hidden World contains books, posters, magazines, pamphlets, photographs, T-shirts, record sleeves, and illustrations which have long served as one of Shaw’s primary sources of creative inspiration.

The Hidden World is a collection of objects from various sects, not-so-secret societies, evangelical and fundamentalist movements, new age spiritualists, fraternal orders, medical and scientific speculations, and conspiracy theorists. Much of the collection was produced by anonymous authors and artists, and found at flea markets, thrift stores, and online. Lifelong friend and collaborator Mike Kelley said that, “Jim Shaw has the most amazing collection of cultural oddities that I have ever seen.” As a teenager growing up in Midland, MI, Shaw became fascinated by these materials as well as grass-roots religious movements that became a feature of public-access television, especially southern evangelical religious programs that found a foothold in Michigan and the Midwest. The first object introduced into the collection, and a cornerstone of Shaw’s fascination, was a book by Ernest L. Norman, cofounder of the Unarius Academy of Science.

On the occasion of the MSU Broad’s major exhibition Michigan Stories: Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw, which features The Hidden World, Shaw purposefully sought out additional materials related to his home state. The MSU Broad acquisition strategy adheres to collecting from the museum’s exhibition program. Over one thousand items from The Hidden World were on view at the MSU Broad as part of Michigan Stories: Mike Kelley and Jim Shaw through February 25, 2018, some of which have never been shown before.

“We are honored to acquire this monumental collection of objects,” said Director Marc-Olivier Wahler. “The Hidden World will live in Jim’s home state of Michigan and will be an endless resource for research and inspiration for our curators, students, and faculty.”

MSU Broad Director Marc-Olivier Wahler has worked with Shaw for more than 15 years, beginning with his exhibition, The Goodman Image File and Study at the Swiss Institute, New York, in 2002, which included thousands of archival materials and a narrative arc revolving around religious orders and fictional characters. In 2012, Wahler first showed The Hidden World as part of LOST (in L.A.), which celebrated the “lost” history of radical creative dialogue between France and Los Angeles. In 2013, The Chalet Society exhibited The Hidden World in Paris, accompanied by a catalogue designed by Parisian collective, The Bells Angels. In 2015, The Hidden World was included in the New Museum’s survey of Shaw and first comprehensive museum show in New York, The End is Near.

Other notable works recently acquired by the MSU Broad include:

• Michel Parmentier, 26 mars 1991, 1991. Oil bar on tracing paper. This work, emblematic of Parmentier’s use of neutral, repetitive patterns aimed at eschewing any determination, will be included in the first North American retrospective of this seminal artist (April 28-October 7, 2018). After MoMA, the MSU Broad is the second museum in the United States to acquire a work by Michel Parmentier.

• David Lamelas, Buenos Aires no existe/Buenos Aires n'existe pas, 2011. The MSU Broad will open a major solo exhibition of his work on June 2, 2018 titled Fiction of a Production.

• Tony Matelli, Weed (#384), 2017, painted bronze. The acquisition of this piece serves the MSU Broad’s acquisitions strategy, which aims to collect from its exhibition program. Weed (#384) was featured in The Transported Man (April 29 – October 22, 2017) and will act as a historical marker within the collection of this momentous debut exhibition curated by museum director, Marc-Olivier Wahler.