Appalling On Every Level; A Pure Disaster
This 2010 press release is a profanity-saturated satire of crisis-era art economics, written through the faux voice of "Pauline Thugman" and modeled on political outrage columns. Williams's supposed "art freeze" and return to Norman Rockwell-style pictorial values are treated as a betrayal of avant-garde principles, collector demand, and the sexual fantasies of his supporters. The text turns recession policy, Picasso's classicism, Hooters, Monte Carlo, fart credits, and space aliens into a grotesque comedy of artistic compromise. Its obscenity is not incidental; it functions as a formal assault on the respectable language of cultural commentary. The piece captures Williams's early samizdat mode at full voltage: vulgar, anti-polite, and determined to make the art world's moral language sound as ridiculous as its market behavior.
- DATE:
- January 26, 2010
- DOCUMENT TYPE:
- Essay / Critique
- NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
- LG Williams; Pauline Thugman; Jonnie Jackoff; Norman Rockwell; Pablo Picasso
- INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
- New York Times; Artforum; Hooters; The Estate of LG Williams; Monte Carlo
- KEYWORDS:
- art freeze as political betrayal; Pauline Thugman persona; Norman Rockwell as betrayal of avant-garde; profanity as economic column; crisis-era art economics; avant-garde principles betrayed