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Collage of five diverse artworks from the Hammer Museum Collections side by side. From left to right: 1) Contemporary painting of two embracing figures with surreal elements. 2) Post-impressionist style painting of trees with vibrant blues and greens. 3) Black and white illustration of a face with intricate patterns. 4) Japanese woodblock print style image of a figure in a checkered robe. 5) Photograph of a couple dancing, the woman in a black dress and the man in white

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Digital Archive Take It or Leave It: Institution, Image, Ideology
Art Sue Williams, Record Profits
Record Profits, by Sue Williams, 2008

Sue Williams, Artist
Record Profits , 2008

Medium
Oil and acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
70 x 70 in. (177.8 x 177.8 cm)
Credit Line
Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles, and 303 Gallery, New York. Image courtesy of the artist and Regen Projects

Record Profits presents a nearly impenetrable and highly detailed accumulation of interlacing forms in shades of corporeal red. Like an excerpt from a much larger field of penetrations, ruptures, and dripping forms, the painting envisages the ever-expanding "war on terror" as an abstract expressionist bloodbath. Perhaps in reference to the sums of capital—political, cultural, or material—expended on a Middle East war, the title darkly projects an economy that accrues and trades in dismembered bodies.