Tag Archives: Gagosian

WALLY HEDRICK: September 17 – October 23, Mara McCarthy’s The Box, 977 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA, 90012

Far From Ground Zero, Obscure Hawaiian Artist Is Ignored No Longer

By Dammiene S. Cavelesse, New York Times

HONOLULU, HI — If building an artwork 10,000 miles from ground zero amounts to the epitome of Art insanity, as critics of the project have claimed, what should the world make of LG Williams, the obscure, evangelical, and self-proclaimed anarchy-artist who plans to memorialize everything with a bonfire consisting of everything he can set ablaze?

Mr. Williams, 38, a former CIA Intelligence Officer with an honorary Ph.D. and long golden handlebar sideburns, argues that as an American Artist he has a right to burn everything because “everything today is full of shit.” In another era, he might have been easily ignored or guillotined, as he was last year when he posted a sign outside his luxury studio declaring “Attempt The Impossible: Fart Beyond The Devil’s Fireplace.”

But now the global art spotlight has shifted. With the debate today in the New York Artworld putting artistic tensions front and center, Mr. Williams has suddenly attracted thousands of internet fans and critics on Facebook and SheMaleFly, while around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-art sentiment.

Artistic leaders in several countries, including Syria and Tunisia, have formally condemned him and his art, said The Mental Health Outreach Center of Western Samoa.

A fringe Dadaist Art group in Scotland has also incorporated his efforts into a YouTube video that encourages Artists to “rise up and shit down,” widening a concern that Mr. Williams — though clearly a fringe figure with only 6 or 9 members in his clandestine, avant-garde art university, DDDDDD University — could spark riots or art terrorism.

“Can you imagine what this will do to our image around the world?” said Edward Hopper, a spokesman for the Council on American Realistic Art Relations in Washington. “And there is the additional danger that it will add whatever if there is an American presence in a museum?”

Mr. Williams, in a lengthy interview at his university, said he sincerely hoped that burning everything would lead to the end of everything. He dismissed the idea that it could put American artists at greater risk, and — echoing his lectures — he said that his art was being persecuted by “art-less motherfuckering philistines.”

He said his art studio recently demanded immediate repayment of the $1,690,000 balance on the studio mortgage; that his art insurance had been canceled since he announced in late July that he intended to burn everything; and that death threats now come in regularly from Indiana, the home state of Kurt Vonnegut.

“We have to be careful,” Mr. Williams said. He tapped a plastic holster on the right hip of his surf shorts: it held a replica .40-caliber water pistol, which he said needed no license to carry. “The overall response,” he added, “has been much greater than we expected.”

Mr. Williams who seems to spend much of his time trying not to work, was speaking in his studio next to a poster from the movie “Hiroshima Mon Amour (1969)” and a naked picture of his current muse, Mrs. XXX Ex-Communist, appears to be largely oblivious to the potential global consequences of his plans. Speaking in short American sentences punctuated with remarkable riffs of matter-of-fact French profanity (Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d’enculé de ta mère.), he said that he could not understand why other Artists, including the nation’s largest Arts association, The College Art Association, had called for him to cancel “International Burn Everything Day — Everyday.”

He acknowledged that it had brought in at least $100,000 in donations. But he said that the interviews he had done with around 150 Art news outlets all over the world were useful mainly because they had helped him “send a message to Art and the makers of badness – badness in everything must stop: that is what we want.”

Mr. Williams said that nothing in particular had set him off. Asked about his knowledge of the Fine Art, he said plainly: “Today, I have no experience with it whatsoever. But I can evoke everything that Gombrich, Nabokov and The Mahabharatta said.”

Still, like many others, Williams rejects the moment’s swirl of anger. Even if Art outside the United States responds to the planned International Burn Everything Day — Everyday with protests, or worse, he would spend his future everyday’s doing the same thing he did yesterday: burning shit down.

# # # # #

Please contact LG Williams at info@lgwilliams.com for more information.

Vintage 1984 LG Williams Exhibition Poster: Athena Restaurant, Kansas City, Mo

Leave a reply

Up-And-Coming Artist Who Stares At Curators, Collectors, and Dealers Boobs® 2010 :: www.uacawsaccadb.com

Leave a reply

PRESS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

06 August 2010

THE ESTATE OF LG WILLIAMS
CORRALES, NEW MEXICO 87048
I N F O @ L G W I L L I A M S . C O M
W W W . L G W I L L I A M S . C O M
P. 415-937-1306
STUDIO HOURS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY

Dear Distinguished Art Professional:

During a recent trip to a Sufi meditation retreat in the awe-inspiring but overheated San Joaquin Valley, I reflected upon all the magnificent, tireless handiwork undertaken by Art curators, collectors, and dealers – in other words, the entire Artworld-At-Large.

Then suddenly, while ostensibly floating high above our galaxy, and infinitesimally close to finalizing untold socio-politico-philosophical theorems concerning these selfless art devotees, I imagined the professional art thrill seekers, the artistic nomads ever hungry to be filled with art content who bring-on the art everyday, and received another aesthetic epiphany. These under recognized but distinguished Art professionals who provide living culture with their invaluable services all over the world deserve a tribute, or a gift, if you will – for the services rendered.

Even better (yes, it gets even better) I envisioned a global exchange taking shape in yet another dimension. In full-blown heated rapture, I envisioned a collaborative art project with said peoples for which I am now requesting your urgent participation! Please help me! Help!

This clandestine Art-reality-adventure, as far as you can get from Stupid Fucking Art 1.0, but the next pure super-huge worldwide art movement, is tentatively (albeit perhaps prematurely) entitled, “Up-And-Coming Artist Who Stares At Curators, Collectors, and Dealers Boobs®.”

Now then, before I go any further into the details of my request let me be clear about two aspects of this outlandish project from the start. First, it is with the deepest regret that given the project’s international size, scope, and future partnership with Michelle Obama’s Get Fit America Program! (2009-2010) “man boobs” unfortunately will not be included. And, secondly, this project will not focus upon ancient matters of artistic originality or hanky-panky. Instead, it will rely solely upon matters of life and death.

The unprecedented life and death aspect of this thrill-seeking but sublime art project (exhibition, documentary video, book, posters, website, et al.), was partly inspired by a recent research project undertaken by a German scientist Dr. Karen Weatherby and published in the New England Journal of Medicine; along with the artists extensive personal and professional milieu, vis-à-vis, the artist’s remarkable international coterie, either real or virtual, of art curators, collectors, and dealers; as well as the artist’s recent sacred pilgrimage to Central California for dialogues with renowned, exiled, almost lone, and, well, soon-to-be-engaged Sufi master.

More to the point, Up-And-Coming Artist Who Stares At Curators, Collectors, and Dealers Boobs® mirrors the artist’s very own existential or, as some would say, apocalyptic – but, to be fair, at times also art-historical, asymmetric, bawdy, idiomatic, populist, esoteric, expedient, social networked – journey into the world of exploring his intimate surroundings with a luxury laptop. Or, to put it another way (making it a three-way if you keep track of such matters), UACAWSACCADB® is a visual / mythical / poetic rumination focusing upon the thousands of millions of international art world splendors, part primal, part natural, part faux-natural, but all richly embodied and a few finely perfumed.

This latest monumental artwork, one in series of bold assaults upon a long line of well-established canonical assaults – and the first exhaustive exhibition by the prolific artist in nearly three weeks – will culminate in an immersive two-and-a-half minute, yea, you guessed it, Meyeresque-Angeresque-Brackagesque-Cohenesque-Courbesque-Goodridgesque-GirlsGoneWildesque-LGesque YouTube™ video.

Please let me know immediately if you are interested in participating in this landmark Art project and I will quickly reply with the few simple details and permission form. Participation will be strictly confidential and discreet. The email address to participate is FuckYeah@UACAWSACCADB.com. Additionally, the email address to not participate in this project is FuckNo@UACAWSACCADB.com. The email address for more information about this project is WTF@UACAWSACCADB.com. The email address to be never contacted again about this project is FU@UACAWSACCADB.com.

Finally, given the life and death nature of this extreme art-reality project, please let me know if you are aware of any other qualified art professionals whom I can contact and invite to play art.

Sincerely,

LG Williams

Artist, Currently Residing in Honolulu and Los Angeles

www.lgwilliams.com

# # # # #

Please contact LG Williams at info@lgwilliams.com for more information.

# # # # #

New Art From Modesto: Curated By Haleh Niazmand and LG Williams

Leave a reply

Mercedes

Porsche

Ferrari

Telephonebooth Gallery Presents:
Closed By LG Williams June 1 to 30, 2010

Leave a reply

LG Williams, Closed (Telephonebooth Gallery)
2010, 48 x 64, Vinyl and Engineer Grade Reflective Sheeting on Heavy-Duty Aluminum Edition of 10, Price Upon Request