Vatican Slams LG Williams
This press release parodies Vatican criticism of mass-culture spectacle by recasting LG Williams's art as a religious threat. The Vatican newspaper and radio station are imagined attacking Williams's "WHITE FLAG" exhibition for suggesting that great art can replace religion, while his supporters counter that he has become less a creation to defend than a divinity to worship. The piece folds together institutional piety, blockbuster hype, ecological messaging, Hollywood celebrity, sex, money, politics, and the artist's own inflated mythology. Its comic premise is that Williams's art has become spiritually dangerous enough to require clerical review. The result is a mock-theological scandal in which art criticism, religious authority, and celebrity idolatry collapse into the same anxious spectacle.
- DATE:
- January 15, 2010
- DOCUMENT TYPE:
- Essay / Critique
- NAMED ARTISTS / FIGURES:
- LG Williams; Less Rizzotto Pleesee; Natalie Portman; the pope
- INSTITUTIONS / VENUES:
- The Estate of LG Williams; Vatican; Vatican newspaper; L'Osservatore Romano; Vatican Radio; Los Angeles art world; LA Times blog
- KEYWORDS:
- Vatican attacks Williams; WHITE FLAG as religious threat; great art replacing religion; press release parody of ecclesiastical criticism; art as spiritual threat; blasphemy through press release