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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, Spiritual America
Spiritual America, by Sue Williams, 1992

Sue Williams, Artist
Spiritual America , 1992

Medium
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions
2 panels, 66 x 48 in. (167.6 x 121.9 cm) overall
Credit Line
Collection of Larry Clark. Image courtesy of Larry Clark; photo by Jason Mandella

Unsettling scenes of intimacy in Sue Williams's oeuvre are always interrelated with more public forms of inequity and hostility. Partially obscured by white washes, the appropriated cartoons featured in Spiritual America depict women as hostages to male potency. The work critiques the normalization of such violent images in popular culture, despite the use of sardonic humor about male impotence in the punch line. In a further act of appropriation, Williams's title is taken from Richard Prince's controversial re-photograph of a picture of a nude ten-year-old Brooke Shields, a further indictment of men's unchecked portrayals of the female body in art and popular culture.