LG Williams · Beverly Hills · Est. 1969 Issue No. 2026.05 · 40+ entries ART · MISCHIEF · FAILURE

LG WILLIAMS and THE ESTATE OF LG WILLIAMS™

1986–2026

PRESS

Selected press on LG Williams — reviews, interviews, quotes, and public notices — followed by a chronological bibliography spanning 1986–2026. Citations include archived copies and PDFs where available. Quotation does not imply endorsement.

Search the complete archive of 200+ articles ↗︎

§ 01 / Quotes

SELECTED PRESS QUOTES

Newest → oldest

“The true history of the real SF counter culture is about community and mutual support not extracting or twisting narratives to build [LG Williams’] own myth…”

A Renowned San Francisco Art Historian (2025)

“STOP SENDING ME THIS DRIVEL”

Dr. Amelia Jones, Vice Dean of Faculty & Research Director, Performance Studies Grad Certificate, USC Roski School of Art and Design (2025)

“Let me tell you: LG is really talented…and I should know because I’m really smart!”

Name Withheld By Request (2023)

“[LG…] is content with his decision…to be irrelevant and a hermit.”

Nameless VIP (2022)

“[LG…] goes against the genuine persuit [sic] of art by turning the idea of an ‘artist’ it [sic] into a fraudulent costume.”

Instagram Profile Withheld (2020)

“[LG] provides a striking example for future Artists of what not to become.”

Lindsey Nobel, Artist and Former Collegiate NorCal Water Polo Player (2018)

“Funny thing, come to think of it, the person who had the biggest impact on my life never claimed credit.”

Julia Friedman (2018)

“LG Williams is the artist to watch.”

Julia Friedman, Modern Luxury Orange County Magazine (2017)

“[LG] can do the inhuman.”

Forrest Solis, Associate Director in the School of Art, Arizona State University (2016)

“The women do live together in real life, but in a ménage à trois…With a guy named LG!”

TotallyUnauthorized.com (2016)

“Many will see that, yes, Williams’s art is an elaborate, brilliant, post-post-post modern intellectual play while others will stand outside of the space, scratching their chin wondering how they can buy into what is happening.”

Kyle Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles I’m Yours (2013)

“LG Williams is the ‘pretty-darn-important’ American artist that you’ve probably never heard of.”

Jenna Duncan, Java Magazine (2013)

“The real and fictional works of artist LG Williams defy categorization…”

Peter Yeoh, Glass Magazine (2012)

“LG Williams N’Existe Pas!”

Jean-Noël Lafargue, Le Dernier des Blogs (2012)

“An engagement with Williams’ protean practice reveals an all-pervasive interplay between comments on reality and the construction of fictional worlds…inviting us to consider them, without losing its relevance in its own right.”

Thomas Frangenberg, Anthology: 1985–2012 (2012)

“Amongst the sleepy, blue-chip artists, LG Williams’s art wakes up [the viewer] with his impertinence.”

Rocco Moliterni, La Stampa (2011)

“Williams can demonstrate aesthetic pleasures even in the apparent absence of art itself.”

Emily Wakeling, Time Out Tokyo (2011)

“[In Williams’s art] the imaginary supplants the real with the purpose of exposing the fallacies of the system as a whole. His method is hard to grasp because his process is, essentially, a series of magic tricks — and as with any magic act, it is best not to try but to sit back, watch, follow the sleight of hand, and enjoy.”

Julia Friedman, Artforum (2011)

“…I actually feel sorry for you, but even more so for the people who live in fear [of you] and might be manipulated by your disinformation.”

Shepard Fairey, ObeyGiant.com (2008)

“LG Williams is a fantastic spammer. I’ve been getting his unsolicited E-mails for years now.”

Marshall Astor on blogging.la (2008)

“Ten years from now we’ll probably look back at LG Williams’s sculptures with [a] kind of subtle estrangement: a marked historical distance that separates us from the immediate emotions and politics surrounding their creation.”

Lindsey Westbrook, East Bay Express (2003)

“LG your next: Run LG Run!”

Wally Hedrick (2001)

“In Williams’s paintings, an illusion takes place, like that of a psychic membrane [letting] in differing levels of worldly impressions — a container that doesn’t quite contain. Much of the aesthetic pleasure that these works provide consists in tracking the progress and evolution of these shapes through shifting zones of pictorial transparent perception.”

Mark Van Proyen, Art Issues (1999)

“…Williams wants to hold open a space in which painting might resume in earnest once the trouble is over. But his implication is that the trouble is history itself.”

Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle (1999)

“One of the most interesting contemporary artists who can address or find his way through the computer-assisted malady we call ‘image overload.’”

Glen Helfand, San Francisco Bay Guardian (1999)

“Williams’s artworks remarkably combine power and elegance.”

Wayne Thiebaud (1987)

“LG Williams is art.”

Bob Arneson (1986)
§ 02 / Scholarship

Harvard-Cited

Harvard Journal of Law & Technology · 2011

Before the Obama Hope poster became a legal and academic case study, LG Williams had already named the image problem.

H. Brian Holland’s “Social Semiotics in the Fair Use Analysis” cites Lawrence Graham Williams III’s 2008 “Obama’s Public Image Speaks Volumes” in its discussion of Shepard Fairey’s Obama Hope poster, contested public meaning, propaganda aesthetics, and social semiotics.
Harvard JOLT PDF · Obama Hope Scam project overview
§ 03 / Bibliography

PRESS & BIBLIOGRAPHY

1986 — 2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

  • Illinois State University, Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, Marshall Dulaney Pitcher Past Award Recipient Exhibition, March 31 – April 10 (Postponed — archived 1 | 2)

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

  • Independent Collectors.com, “Le Souffleur: Wilhelm Schürmann presents his collection with works from the Ludwig Collection.” Jasper Johns, On Kawara, Monika Baer, Chuck Close, Guerilla Girls, Richard Hamilton, Franz West, Raymond Pettibon, LG Williams, and more; March 31 (archived)
  • Radio-AM-Alex.de, 20-minute interview/podcast (in German) with Karim Azmani and art collector Wilhelm Schürmann about The Schürmann Contemporary Art Collection — which includes (partial selection): Jasper Johns, On Kawara, Monika Baer, Chuck Close, Guerilla Girls, Richard Hamilton, Franz West, Raymond Pettibon, LG Williams, and more; March 20
  • WDR.de News & Multimedia, Collectors In Dialogue: Art Appreciation And Passion For Art Collecting. A 10-minute interview/podcast (in German) with Von Sabine Oelze and art collector Wilhelm Schürmann — which includes (partial selection): Jasper Johns, On Kawara, Monika Baer, Chuck Close, Guerilla Girls, Richard Hamilton, Franz West, Raymond Pettibon, LG Williams, and more; March 16
  • Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Le Souffleur: Schürmann Meets Ludwig: from the Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann Collection, Program Catalogue: February – May 2015, page 50, Aachen, Germany
  • Gries, Laurie E. — Still Life with Rhetoric: A New Materialist Approach to Visual Rhetorics. Discusses Americans for Visual Literacy (LG Williams) on pp. 185–188, 192, 194–195, 200–201; index pp. 313, 317 (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press). (pdf)

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2005

  • Los Angeles Times, A mart for new art: Contemporary pieces will be the stock in trade at artLA, a fair aimed at filling a longstanding void, Suzanne Muchnic, January 23. (pdf)

2004

  • Hawaii Professor Discovers ‘Mystery Behind Mona Lisa’s Smile’, December 16
  • ArtDaily.com, Hawaii Professor Discovers ‘Mystery Behind Mona Lisa’s Smile’, December 16
  • Wired, Letters To The Editor: She Can’t Smile Without You: The Science Behind Mona’s Smile (Re: Issue 12.10, October 2004), December 16
  • Honolulu Advertiser, Letters To The Editor: Groundwater Article Simply Dumfounding, June 29

2003

2002

1999

1998

  • Fall Features, LG Williams: Instructor, Tam Nguyen, Laney College Writings, pp. 4–12

1996

1995

  • Berkeley Public Library, Reflections on Hiroshima/Nagasaki, August 1–15, Berkeley, CA

1994

1993

  • The Flame, John F. Kennedy University, CA, The New Art-Liberation of Individuality: An Interview with LG Williams, Jodi Senkyrik, June

1992

  • San Francisco Chronicle, ‘People In The News’, Pat Walsh, October 29, p. A24
  • Focus, Modesto Junior College, Art on Display, Christine Merritt, September 24
  • Berkeley Voice, Berkeley Art Center, Rob D’Amico, September 29
  • Modesto Bee, Nine Fresh Directions, Leo Stutzin, September 2
  • California State Exposition, California Works, August 20 – September 3
  • Sacramento Bee, Kingsley Show, Victoria Dalkey, April 26
  • Palo Alto Times, Transport!, Jane Ayres, February 19

1991

  • Palo Alto Cultural Center, Transport!, Signe Mayfield, February 10 – April 20
  • Peninsula Times Tribune, Taking Art for a Ride, Jane Ayres, March 21
  • Palo Alto Weekly, The Way We Move, Manjusha Pawagi, February 27
  • San Jose Mercury News, Strong Displays, Dorothy Burkhart, February 23

1989

  • San Jose Mercury News, A Moving Art Show, Ken Heiman, February 13

1988

1987