Paul
Shambroom
Paul is an artist using found and original photographs. His documentary subjects include the US nuclear arsenal, small town council meetings, and Homeland Security training sites. Since 2012 he has worked largely with sourced images on themes involving American culture, loss, and memory. He has recently expanded his practice into sculpture and collaborative interdisciplinary theater/visual art projects. Paul’s work has been included in Whitney Biennial and collected and exhibited by the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and many others. His work has been published in three monographs: Paul Shambroom: Picturing Power, Meetings, and Face to Face with the Bomb. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Creative Capital Foundation, among others. Paul was born in Teaneck, NJ, and lives in Minneapolis, where he is an associate professor in the Department of Art, University of Minnesota.
I am most excited to work on projects that… heighten awareness and encourage citizen engagement through art and creativity.
I am looking for partners that can help me… reach outside political bubbles through listening, compassion, and finding common humanity. A little humor doesn’t hurt, either.
A moment when I felt most inspired in my work was… regarding my nuclear weapons work, when I learned that a nun who was serving prison time for political activism kept a copy of my book in her cell.
Innovations in my field that I am most excited to work on… include the blurring of lines between art and activism, collaborations outside the traditional realms of art practice, and the best democratic potentials of social media (which must be defended).