Now Here's That Blame Treaty
1983
This densely laden work is a quintessential example of William T. Wiley’s enigmatic use of puns, self-referential symbolism, sociopolitical references, and chaotically overlapping imagery. We can make out distinct and disparate forms in a darkened artist studio—a palette and easel, a baby’s pacifier, a skull, an angel, an infinity symbol—that seem to suggest but do not fully reveal a complex narrative. In the center radiates a glowing grid, both a recurring symbol in the artist’s work and one that paradoxically represents a mainstream form of geometric abstraction standing in diametrical opposition to Wiley’s idiosyncratic and elusive consciousness.
Etching
Sheet h.: 51 7/8 in.
Sheet w.: 41 7/8 in.
Image h.: 44 3/4 in.
Image w.: 35 3/4 in.
Plate h.: 45 in.
Plate w.: 36 in.
Gift of Marcia Bartholme and Rockwell Smith
92.140
