LG Williams · Est. 1969Samizdat Archive
LG Williams Samizdat Archive
SAMIZDAT
1993–2026
Essay: LG Williams stages public contrition as slapstick art by taking responsibility for anything at Telephonebooth gallery, 2010

LG Williams Takes Responsibility For Anything At Telephonebooth

This press release turns the ritual of public contrition into a slapstick art-world confession, with Williams "taking responsibility" for anything, anywhere, provided the fee is right. The document begins in hangover, debt, sake, and art-fair rumor, then escalates into a mock statesmanlike address from a stolen milk crate near Telephonebooth. Its comedy is political in structure: apology, compromise, accountability, and messaging are treated as empty procedures that can be filled with any blank, any purchase, any catastrophe. Tim Brown's Telephonebooth becomes less a gallery than a scene of exhausted authority, where art practice, preaching, economics, and oblivion collapse into one unsteady press conference. The piece is a vicious little parody of leadership after failure, and of an art world always eager to confuse collapse with strategic repositioning.

DATE:
December 4, 2010
DOCUMENT TYPE:
Essay / Critique
NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
LG Williams; Tim Brown; Ronald Reagan; Bill Clinton; Pericles
INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
Telephonebooth; The Estate of LG Williams; McDonald's
KEYWORDS:
public contrition as form; taking responsibility for everything; responsibility without content; slapstick confession; accountability theater; apology as medium
View / Download PDF ↗︎