LG Williams Storms FUCKTHATGALLERY In Honolulu
This sprawling profane review announces Williams's arrival at FUCKTHATGALLERY in Honolulu by turning exhibition criticism into a drunken, self-consuming performance. The text begins with the damaged sculpture Really Fucked-Up and spirals through Raphael, Velazquez, Bacon, Wally Hedrick, Nauman, McCarthy, Burden, Yves Klein, Andy Kaufman, The Dude, Radiohead, and a refrigerator imagined as Donald Judd. Its method is not explanation but overload: every reference is dragged into a comic test of whether Williams can stand beside the heroic and ridiculous figures of West Coast and pop-cultural rebellion. The piece mocks the grand art-review question--how great is the artist?--by asking it in the least respectable language possible. It is art criticism after the beer runs out.
- DATE:
- March 15, 2010
- DOCUMENT TYPE:
- Essay / Critique
- NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
- LG Williams; Jonnie JO; Barbie Bababa-Blather; Wally Hedrick; Dave Hollowell; Bruce Nauman; Paul McCarthy; Mara McCarthy; Chris Burden; Yves Klein; Andy Kaufman; John Belushi; Father Guido Sarducci; Radiohead; Lisa Spellman; Beavis and Butt-Head; The Dude; Dave Hickey; Francis Bacon; Raphael; Velazquez
- INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
- The Estate of LG Williams; FUCKTHATGALLERY; Honolulu; Los Angeles; London; LACMA
- PLACES:
- Honolulu
- KEYWORDS:
- drunken exhibition review as performance; overloaded reference as comedy; Hedrick and Nauman invoked and mocked; how great is the artist asked obscenely; West Coast rebellion tested by beer; criticism after the beer runs out