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Exel Galleries - Kenneth Baker
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L.G. WILLIAMS AT WIRTZ
Kenneth Baker
Jaly 17, 1999
The work of LG Wiliams at
Wirtz resembles painting,
but itis mixed media
collage on canvas.
We might never figure out
by looking at them that
Williams develops his
pictures from computer-
processed found images.
Being assemblages of
‘small printed sheets of
paper and transparent plastic, his pieces have a handmade look at
‘odds with their graphic style.
The closest artistic cousins to Williams’ art may be the image-
clogged work of Sigmar Polke and the early black-and-white
paintings of Roy Lichenstein. Williams quotes Lichtenstein directly
in his "Study for ( ( Sshh!!" (1999).
Comic-strip and advertising images, things scavenged from old
textbooks and mail-order catalogs and some details of his own
invention colide in Wiliams’ pictures. They exude an air of social
critique, but itis hard to tell what Willams is against.
‘The format he uses makes it seem that Williams wants to hold
‘open a space in which painting might resume in eamest once the
trouble is over. But his dreary implication is that the trouble is
history itsetf.