Post #340978 by WooHooWahine on Mon, Oct 29, 2007 7:43 AM

Shag: The Flesh Is Willing
October 28, 2007 – January 27, 2008
Laguna Art Museum
307 Cliff Drive
Laguna Beach, CA 92651

(949) 494-8971

The Flesh Is Willing combines two of the artist’s pictorial interests, nudes and purgatory, in an investigation of 50s cocktail culture and the notion of sin.

This exhibition was inspired by a recent trip to the Prado in Madrid, where Shag viewed the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel in person for the first time. Bosch's work The Garden of Earthly Delights, center panel of his famous triptych depicting Paradise, Earth and Hell, was of particular interest to the artist. Shag was struck by Bosch’s grand depiction of the earthly delights and began to analyze the effect of this iconography on modern culture.

The centerpiece of The Flesh is Willing will be a large triptych with the artist’s interpretation of Paradise, Earth and Hell as seen through consumerism and consumption à la America in the 1950s. Shag will also address the implementation of punishment and fear, used as a deterrent against indulgences, with three interactive pieces created from vintage arcade games where users can play and determine in advance what their fate will be.

Josh Agle (better known as Shag, a contraction of the last two letters of his first name and the first two letters of his last) is a painter, illustrator, and designer working in southern California. This will be Agle’s first major museum exhibition. In conjunction with the exhibition Agle will present a lecture on December 9 at 1:00 p.m.

Shag & Eve Plumb (aka Jan Brady)

[ Edited by: WooHooWahine 2007-10-29 08:45 ]