Sue Williams: What Now Published by Walther König, Köln. Edited with text by Stella Rollig, Luisa Ziaja. Text by Ashton Cooper, Bice Curiger, Katrin Plav?ak, Nancy Spero, Sue Williams. Williams’ compelling, candid works oscillate from cartoonlike caricatures to colorful abstractions rendered in shockingly explicit gestures Published with Belvedere 21, Vienna.
Since the late 1980s, American painter Sue Williams (born 1954) has been exploring themes of power and oppression, gender relations and body politics in her paintings and drawings. The compelling force of her work unfolds in the simultaneity of the personal and the political, humorous caricature and painterly gestures with an almost shocking explicitness. As critic John Williams put it, “The great appeal of her work lies in its utter refusal to perpetuate any sense of business as usual.”
What Now includes paintings, drawings and collages spanning all phases of the artist’s career, ranging from her early works rendered in black and white and characterized by a cartoonlike style, to her current colorful pieces that straddle figuration and abstraction. The volume also features five texts, old and new, by curators and artists Ashton Cooper, Bice Curiger, Katrin Plav?ak, Nancy Spero and Williams herself.
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