Jason Shulman, Moving Pictures at Ashley Saville Gallery, Fleet Street, London, May 2026 – Word is the opening was packed, that nothing could be properly seen in terms of the art on the walls, that it was quite a party: always good to see a new art space opening, this one is smack bang in the middle of London’s Fleet Street and that glorious bookshelf of every architectural style ever that the street offers those who look up. It was always going to be the better option to go see this latest Jason Shulman exhibition at the new Ashley Saville Gallery on the first proper day rather than on the opening night.
Jason Shulman is an always interesting artist, you never quite know what you might get next, where he might take it, yet somehow it all makes perfect sense in terms of his identity as an artist. The gallery statement talks of him as a “romantic artist” and points out his themes – loss, memory, nostalgia, death, the porous membrane between joy and pain, time and space, forgetting and remembering…” – Time and space particularly jumps off the walls here, well not so much jumps as much as it quietly suggests. Working, as he often does, with light, with illusion and yes, that with those suggestions; this time via photography, emotionally moving images of moving images, long exposure pieces, photographs of moving pictures that play with time (is play the right word here? These are surely not playful pieces, although, maybe they are?).
“His first photographic work along these lines was the well-known Photographs of Films series, in which he gathers the entirety of a feature film into a single image. The ‘kiss’ photographs shown today are a refinement of this idea. By subjecting screen kisses to this process, he shows us the essence, not just the image, of a kiss – the impulse as well as the consummation: so the face of the unkissed, the not-yet kissed co-exists with the kiss itself”.
But then, alongside the kiss pieces, or the long exposure of Disney’s Lady and The Tramp and that spaghetti moment there’s the potential uneasiness of those slurred shots of masturbating men at the moment of climax. Shulman, so we are told, is ‘not at all uncomfortable’ with his masturbators. ‘Everyone does it. Why are we so weird about it?’ – No, it isn’t uncomfortable to look at them in these Cum Shots blurred and (almost) beautiful, and it certainly makes for an interesting scan along the gallery wall (and the question of where’s the cum has landed?) before you go back to other wall and the stand-alone piece that is now the almost orgasmic joy of Roger Bannister (orgasmic now that you look at it in this context or maybe it always was?) and that four minute mile barrier being broken in very English 1950s grey rather then black and white.
The familiar themes of sex and death then: sex and death united (politely) on the gallery walls and look mum there goes a piece of the president’s brain (to quote The Kinks). No, it isn’t an uncomfortable show, far from it, it is indeed a rather beautiful show, refined, restrained. And it is very much a show, an exhibition that needs to be seen while these pieces are all together as one body of work, if you are going to see Jason Shulman’s current body of art, you need to see it all here together like this rather then seeing bits of these moving pictures here and there in group shows or at something like Frieze, you need to see Moving Pictures all together…
There’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, there’s the Star Trek kiss, apparently that very painterly piece is a long exposure of Barbarella and there’s La Dolce Vita kiss and there’s another Cum Shot. I guess you could call Jason Shulman a romantic artist (do we need a question mark here?), you would certainly call him an intriguing artist, a rewarding artist, there’s a lot to see here, to explore and yes, to enjoy. Yes, this is very much a show to enjoy, to explore, ponder, not to question though, this doesn’t feel like a show that needs to be questioned. I wasn’t really sure if I was going to get anything out of this exhibition, the on line glimpses ahead of the opening didn’t really convey anything, this all needs to be seen up close and quietly personal, this is a recommended exhibition.
Ashley Saville Gallery is found at 193 Fleet Street, EC4A 2AH, London. Opening Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm and by appointment The gallery is on the corner above the hair salon, there’s a door to the right, just ring the bell… Moving Pictures goes on until July 6th 2026.
Previously
As always, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show
THE ORGAN 