18 New Paintings To Be Sold On Facebook
This 2010 press release parodies executive authority and emergency politics by turning Williams's decision to sell paintings on Facebook into a mock-presidential act of artistic governance. Surfing, poker, collectors, studio commissions, and the "American Artworld" are folded into a swaggering declaration that the artist will bypass galleries and act directly in the interest of the people. The comedy comes from mapping the language of recess appointments and national responsibility onto the petty theater of art sales, minor dealers, and social media. The document captures an early moment when Facebook appears as an insurgent distribution channel against gallery mediation. Its polemical force lies in treating artistic self-promotion as sovereign power: if the institutions will not consent, the artist will simply govern around them.
- DATE:
- March 27, 2010
- DOCUMENT TYPE:
- Essay / Critique
- NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
- LG Williams; B. Banggay Pierre; Tim Brown; Bonnie Froman; Xavier
- INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
- Facebook; Telephonebooth Gallery; The Estate of LG Williams; United States Artworld
- KEYWORDS:
- Facebook as gallery bypass; mock-presidential art governance; painting sales as national emergency; recess appointment logic applied to studio; artist acting in public interest; gallery circuit circumvented