contemporary art, editions, projects and completion, kansas city, missouri, usa

Winter Invitational 2007

L.G. Williams selects Telephonebooth Winter Invitational to debut his most recent work, House Where The Bottom Fell Out in conjunction with his ongoing installation One Square Foot.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE EXHIBITION: LG WILLIAMS EXHIBITION TITLE: ONE SQUARE FOOT EXHIBITION DATE: NOV 10, 2007 – FEB 28, 2008 OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10TH, FROM 6 TO 8 PM Silly  morons,  Next time I will not Take off my Armour -- LG Williams (2007) telephonebooth gallery in Kansas City is proud to present a installation of recent art by LG Williams, entitled, "One Square Foot". Williams conceived this project as one vastly micro and exuberant installation with the décor and balanced order of the typical eighteenth century hôtel particulier in mind. This most recent group of artworks will be shown in a small, square format, comprising twelve by twelve inches. Williams's previous Smiley Face series (2007), made at his friend Charlie Colin mountain retreat in Park City, UT, seethed with the visceral energies of happy people. In "Smiley Face #7…(for Merry)" happy people appear all over the canvas. Happy people are like favored flowers of Japanese aesthetic contemplation, appearing frequently in illustrations, graffiti and cartoons across the nation, and from every period. So happy, they offer a rush of color and texture. Sometimes here, their fragile headiness is captured and memorialized in both image and inscription. Williams points to the human implications that these full-blown, elegiac paintings hold for an artist in the early middle stages of his life and career. Williams has always blurred the line between painting and drawing, with his strong emphasis on sensation and sensibility, combining elements of gestural abstraction, drawing, and writing in a highly idiosyncratic and potent expression. At once epic and intimate, his work is infused with words, names, and references to poetry, mythology, and history. The alternation between the visible and the hidden, between clear and obscured forms, the struggle between memory and oblivion are unifying themes in his work. A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by art historian Marina Char will be available. A project dedicated to m. karnowsky. 50 limited edition books signed by the artist are now available at $250 The exhibition has been funded by Akim Salem-Atia and Elizabeth Aron, Paris, France & Kansas City, MO.

A Recent Review from the critic Marina Char: Williams’ Bottomless House Williams’ latest installation ‘House Where the Bottom Fell Out’ (Maui, 2007) recalls Gordon Matta-Clark’s dissected buildings. The similarities go as far as their shared interest in physical manipulation of an existing architectural structure, but this is also where they end. Matta-Clark’s works hinge on the notion of entropy as applied to conventional image making  (albeit in the context of the 1970’s interest in larger, architectonic scale). When confronted with Matta-Clark’s dissected houses the viewer is called to judge his ability to produce traditional, figure-ground results in an architectural setting.  Not so with Williams’ bottomless house. Williams’ ushers embodied-minds toward a wealth of contemporary, metaphorical vistas: artistic, economic, social, cultural and even heartbreakingly personal. The subversive physicality in Williams’ work is well compensated by rich, conceptual layering which, since entering the object is forbidden, demands that the viewers invoke the houses unusual arrangements. The existing structure is ‘cantilevered’ into the surrounding landscape, which, uncharacteristically, allows the entire object to be viewed as a whole.  With the entire flooring removed, one discovers the artwork’s unexpected poetic sensibility: the facade, the interior, and the surrounding exterior of the structure can be seen simultaneously, thus creating reverberations between real space and imagined space.  These junctures unexpectedly enrich the physicality of the existing structure with metaphorical probabilities. As we become familiar with the workings of the House Where The Bottom Fell Out, the real and imaginary subjects of the installation become more alive in ineffable terms. Surely, without wishing to make any previous attempts at house-art seem formal and therefore incomplete, Williams capitalizes on the content, the contemporary and the personal. His focus here is on the power of making, the viewers’ involvement. Seeing House Where The Bottom Fell Out is meant to stimulate the audience bringing forth both physical and conceptual aspects of the work. As an artist, Williams remains protean and ever-changing. It is only fair for the viewer to engage with the artist’s poignant visual ambiguity by unpacking the complex metaphorical and visual structures of Williams’ bottomless house. Marina Char Critic-at-Large London, England

The Winter Invitational also has recent work by
local, national and international artists:

Laura Berman, Kansas City,   Rita Brinkerhoff, Kansas City,   Lori Buntin, Kansas City,   Stephen Bushman, Kansas City, Maria Creyts, Kansas City,   Elizabeth Demaray, Brooklyn,   Tom Gregg, Kansas City,   Raven Grey, Kansas City,  Don Guss, Chicago,   Hmh Services, Kansas City,  Spyder Iowa, Kansas City,   Jessica Johnson, Kansas City,   Beniah Leuschke, Kansas City,  Nils Martin, Oslo,   Andy Messerschmidt, Minnesota,  Kristina Knuth Morse & Elizabeth Jeffries Barnes, both of Minneapolis, MN Paul Nudd, Chicago,   Sean Semones, Kansas City,  Bill Shipman, Kansas City,   Sarah Smith, San Francisco,   Mark Stevenson, Kansas City, and further artists en route, to be listed upon arrival.

Questions?

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816-582-9812

(1995 - 2007)

(available work)

(why have a gallery in the midwest?

we are the internal offshore, 

and we work hard.)

applications to the program,
on slides or disk, should contain sase for return of materials.

gallery hours: sat, 12-5 & by appointment,

3319 trooost!, kcmo, 64109, USA 

call ahead, 816-582-9812

thanks, tim brown