Autumn’s Come Undone Exhibition

Welcome back to 2009 and the darker themes, surreal narratives, and somber palette of Josh Agle’s introspective period. The Autumn’s Come Undone exhibition ran from 21st November to the 9th December 2009, at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California.

The exhibition marked a conscious break from Shag’s past work; he explains “Something happened to me in the last year – call it an unexpected change-of-heart, if you like, but a lot of the unfettered hedonism my artwork espoused has begun to catch up with me“. Autumn’s Come Undone was a very personal reflection on Shag’s years of “consequence-free hedonism and consumerism” in his art. His lifestyle had started to restrict his painting with long drink binges and experimentation with drugs causing his usual strong work ethic to slip.

Shag works in a much darker medium in the series of paintings at this exhibition with complex, surreal themes along with a deeper muted palette. The dark and surreal nightmarish landscapes are forbidding and sobering explorations of life’s excesses and jar when compared with his usual confident and colorful pieces. The exhibition included sixteen massive giclée on canvas drawings plus twenty-two acrylic on panel paintings. A thick hardback book also cataloged the exhibition.

Posters for the Autumn’s Come Undone exhibition (sized 17 ¾” by 11 ¾”):

Advertising postcard for the Autumn’s Come Undone exhibition (size: 7″ by 5″) and fold-out triptych card (18 ½” by 4″):

The first set of twelve pieces are impressively large at six foot by four and a half foot (72″x54″). Each piece took Shag about a month to draw in Adobe Illustrator and was produced as a giclée on canvas, in limited editions of just five pieces. The canvases were mounted on the gallery walls or hung by chains, often in diptych or triptych dreamscapes, which added to the spectacle. Each canvas was priced at $5,000 USD. I have shown the twelve images below with their full names, split into the appropriate diptych and triptychs. Note that each image also has a poem or quote which can be read in the Autumn’s Come Undone book.

Twenty-two acrylic on panel original paintings were exhibited, many showing elements of the larger apocalyptic landscapes in more detail.

The sixty-four page Autumn’s Come Undone hardbound book was published in October 2009 by Baby Tattoo Books and measures 13 ½” by 10½” (below left). A limited-edition release of ninety-nine books was also produced (below center) which included a serigraph of A Discouraging Realization (below right) and also a small unique and original hand-signed painting by Shag on each cover. The three-color serigraph print was sized 12 by 9 inches and limited to ninety-nine copies, each paired with a numbered book

Shown below are photographs of the gallery installation and opening reception on Saturday, November 21st, 2009.

Seen Again?

The Floating Stump in September 2018 – auctioned by Heritage Auctions for $4,250:

A Discouraging Realization in November 2019 – auctioned by John Moran Auctioneers (not sold $1500 reserve):

The Untimely Tug in March 2022 – auctioned by Heritage Auctions for $3,000:

His Good Advice in March 2022 – auctioned by Heritage Auctions for $4,250: