LG Williams Art Faces Test Among Art Haters
This press release turns policy negotiation into an absurd legislative battle over Williams's art. The piece borrows the language of tax deductions, committee compromise, mandates, and agenda-building, but every civic term is grotesquely displaced into the art market's tiny, self-important empire. Williams appears as both reformer and commodity, gambling by outsourcing the details of his artistic agenda to committee men with parochial interests. The work's comedy is procedural: art becomes legislation, collectors become taxpayers, and market accommodation becomes the enemy of the artwork's force. Underneath the farce is a sharp attack on cultural bargaining, where the supposed creative process is endlessly diluted by those who want a piece of the fight.
- DATE:
- March 9, 2009
- DOCUMENT TYPE:
- Essay / Critique
- NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
- LG Williams; Jackie Chlamydia; Carl Pulse; Kent Komrad; Mr. Spittle; Mr. Ranger
- INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
- LG Artwork Committee; Estate of LG Williams; North Dakota
- KEYWORDS:
- art as legislation; collectors as taxpayers; market accommodation as enemy; committee men diluting agenda; procedural comedy; creative process endlessly diluted