New Copy
A collection of essays and observations about the art world by artist Robert Williams. With a masterful career spanning decades, Williams has been a part of one of the most influential art movements of the past 60 years.
This is a collection of Robert Williams’ writings – 66 essays, a prologue, quantitative remarks, manifestos, an introduction by Juxtapoz publisher Gwynned Vitello, and a postscript by Dr. Darius A. Spieth of Louisiana State University.
The writing in “Ink, Blood, and Linseed Oil” details and expounds Williams’ observations about the art world, and its nuances and contradictions. He reflects on the nature of art and being an artist, and the politics, sociology and anthropology surrounding it all.
In the early 1990s, Robert Williams persuaded the publisher of skateboard magazine Thrasher to start an art magazine.
Juxtapoz magazine launched in 1994, and shook the art world establishment by presenting the popular underground – out with academic art shows and in with street art, comix, tattooing, erotic photography, figurative painting, illustration, and more. These art forms were celebrated, and the magazine found a wide and hungry audience.
With each issue came an insightful editorial, penned by the godfather of lowbrow, Mr. Bitchin’ himself, Robert Williams.
These essays, 22 years’ worth and a few more, are collected in “Ink, Blood, and Linseed Oil.” They are presented for your enjoyment, bewilderment, and for furtherance of a discussion of the philosophy of art.
"Williams is not afraid to let us all in on the secret."
– Gwynned Vitello, from the Introduction