A really good documentary is price-less and that’s what you have with ROBERT WILLIAMS MR. BITCHIN’. This is it folks, the outsider is looking in and he likes being invited to the party. Way ahead of his time, Mr. Robert Williams is now getting the props he so richly deserves. This new documentary has been hailed by world-renowned artist Ed Ruscha as “The best movie about an artist I’ve ever seen.” If you’re at Comic-Con this weekend, hey people, this is one of the reasons you’re there, to see this doc!
ROBERT WILLIAMS MR. BITCHIN’ will be screening this Saturday, at 4 pm, at Marriott Hall 2 (details below). And it will be screening in LA on July 30.
•And don’t miss – Robert Williams signing daily (Thursday 7/18 – Sunday 7/21) during Comic Con at 1:00pm in the Gentle Giant booth #3513
Press release follows:
ROBERT WILLIAMS MR. BITCHIN’
THE ART AND INFLUENCE OF ROBERT WILLIAMS – A DOCUMENTARY
Screening at Comic Con Int’l Film Fest + The American Cinematheque
Also coming to DVD and Digital Platforms later this month!
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LOS ANGELES, CA (July 17, 2013) The Zap Comix anti-hero R. Crumb says of Robert Williams: “He’s an art hero, that’s the truth!” This irreverent documentary delivers insight into multiple American counter-cultures by following the great American artist and underground legend Robert Williams. From Hot Rods to Punk and Metal, from LSD to the top of the art world, the influential paintings of Robert Williams defied categorization until they became their own art movement. ROBERT WILLIAMS MR BITCHIN’ will be screening on July 20th as an official selection of the Comic Con International Film Festival followed by a Special Screening on July 30th at The American Cinematheque (The Egyptian) in Los Angeles. Soon after, the film will be released nationwide on DVD and video on demand (VOD) platforms by Cinema Libre Studio.
“There’s pop art and then there’s art that makes your eyeballs pop out and scream—that’s where Robert Williams comes in… After forty-some years, they finally made a movie about this true-blue American ass-kicker.” – Chris Ziegler, OC Weekly
“His significant contribution to fine art was rediscovering classical figurative painting techniques and reintroducing them to an American audience with a revolutionary twist – it came to be called “Low-Brow”… Derided and degraded for decades by the contemporary art establishment, he rose to the top with a commitment to using the visual vocabulary of the cartoon as a realistic painting, rendered with precision and unlimited imagination.”– Mat Gleason in Juxtapoz Magazine (2009)
“The best movie about an artist I’ve ever seen.” – Ed Ruscha, artist
Whether you are a fine art fanatic or a low brow luddite, ROBERT WILLIAMS MR. BITCHIN’ is one hell of a ride into the evolution of contemporary art. Including archival footage by friend and famed photographer CR Stecyk the film features: Suzanne Williams, Don Ed Hardy, Debbie Harry, Anthony Kiedis, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, Slash, George DiCaprio, Mat Gleason, Axl Rose, Tony Schafrazi and Artie Shaw.
The feature documentary was directed and edited by Mary C. Reese and co-directed by Nancye Ferguson (Flying with the Angels), Doug Blake, Stephen Nemeth and Michael LaFetra. Ferguson, Blake (The Sessions) and LaFetra (Night Train) also served as producers and Nemeth (The Sessions, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas) executive produced with Charles Solomon Jr. (Nate & Margaret) co-executive producing. An official selection at the Big Sky Film Festival, it has also screened at MoMA, MOCA, OCMA, LACMA and Art Miami-Basel.
SYNOPSIS:Robert Williams was an artist in search of a movement. A prolific oil painter whose painstakingly detailed work often featured naked women, death, destruction, booze and clowns, he didn’t quite fit the fine art mold. In the early 1960s he was confronted with trendy abstraction and superficial pop art. Schooled in the Hot Rod Culture of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and Von Dutch, he emerged as a leader in the Underground Comic revolution along with R. Crumb, contributing regularly to Zap Comix. His antisocial paintings of an alternative reality were marginalized by the art world for decades although he became a hero of sorts for underground artists. His notoriety exploded when his painting Appetite for Destruction was used (and much vilified) as the cover for that 1987 Guns N’ Roses’ album.
When he started Juxtapoz Magazine in 1994, his movement found him. Legions of artists looking for a place within the contemporary art world for their cartoonish realism identified with his “LowBrow” aesthetic. At the time, Williams predicted that “Low brow and alternative art are the crack in the dam and with this leak the art world will never be the same.”
By 2010 the art world could ignore him no longer and he was included in the prestigious Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. ROBERT WILLIAMS MR. BITCHIN documents this influential artist as he rises to the top of the art world, always an outsider.
An irreverent, convention-defying tale of life and art as lived by a maverick in the contemporary art world.
EVENT DETAILS:
Saturday, July 20 – Screening at 4:10pm at the ComicCon Int’l Film Fest – Marriott Hall 2, Marriott Marquis & Marina Q&A with Robert Williams and filmmakers following. Details: http://comiccon2013.sched.org/list/descriptions/#.UdSQAKy1Uls
•And don’t miss – Robert Williams signing daily (Thursday 7/18 – Sunday 7/21) during Comic Con at 1:00pm in the Gentle Giant booth #3513
Tuesday, July 30 – Screening at 7:30pm at The American Cinematheque (Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90028). Q&A to follow with Robert Williams, Suzanne Williams and filmmakers Nancye Ferguson, Stephen Nemeth, Mary C. Reese, Doug Blake, Michael LaFetra and special guests! Details: http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/content/robert-williams-mr-bitchin%E2%80%99-0
DVD and VOD street date – July 30th available at major retail outlets and digital platforms (Hulu, Amazon Instant and more!)
ABOUT CINEMA LIBRE: Cinema Libre Studio is a leader in distributing social-issue documentaries and features by passionate filmmakers. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the Cinema Libre team has released over one hundred films including the Sundance Audience Award‐Winning FUEL, THE END OF POVERTY?, Rachid Bouchareb’s LONDON RIVER and Oliver Stone’s SOUTH OF THE BORDER. The studio is developing John Perkins’ best‐selling memoirs, CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, into a major motion picture. For more information and updates, please visit: http://www.cinemalibrestudio.com and follow on Facebook and Twitter.
