Views from a Tortured Libido by Robt. Williams

Views from a Tortured Libido Reviews

• 
  Jeff Francis

  A recent docu-short on Robert Williams (by Red Bull, of all entities) showed that when the artist isn’t doing such suitably eccentric things as unicycling around Los Angeles on LSD, he’s also an avid reader of history and other subjects.
  
  That fits, as the paintings in “Views from a Tortured Libido” (1993) are preoccupied with a variety of themes. To think Williams is only about naked women and fetishized violence is to sell him short.
  
  Unlike “Visual Addiction,” its arresting but less-evolved predecessor, in “Libido” Williams gives written explanations of each painting. Williams’s prose is gratifying in that it signifies just as engaged an intellect and imagination as his paintings. I especially liked how Williams seems to have such varied fixations as shellfish that resemble the vagina (1), the history of intentional disfigurement (2), the evolutionary features of teeth (3), and the portion of earth’s mass that is iron—70% (4)… On even another level is Williams’s interpretation of histories, from Oscar Wilde’s infamous visit to a Colorado mining town (5) to the World War I spy Mati Hari (6).
  
  A full quarter century after its publication, “Views from a Tortured Libido” may be difficult to track down, but it still serves as an amazing document by a master mind-blower.
  
  
  
  (1) “The Day Joe Smiley ‘Ate the Bad Oyster’”
  (2) “The Waterhead Who Was Raised in a Box”
  (3) “The Tooth Fairy”
  (4) “The Demon Rust”
  (5) “Oscar Wilde in Leadville, April 13th, 1882”
  (6) “The Hindu Priestess of the Somme”
• 
  Sebastian Palmer

  Hmmm... I've found myself looking into the art of Robert Williams numerous times. Some of it is really great, such as the image Guns 'n' Roses chose for the cover of Appetite for Destruction. But after getting this I'm less inclined to pursue my interest further. He's a very talented man, and the artwork can be quite astonishing, both in terms of execution and subject matter. But there's also something a bit wearing, I find, in the constancy of juvenile sexuality and the kind of post '60s hippie-dream gone sour vibe, with the nonstop grotesquerie, etc. I like such stuff, in measure. But in Williams work it's constant. Disappointing...
• 
  David

  Robt. Williams has always been a favorite. This is a fine, inexpensive collection. The titles of the paintings are just as funny as the paintings themselves.