Christopher Williams: A Look at Our Beautiful, Beautiful World

Christopher Williams is a US-American conceptual artist who has made a name photographer of our “beautiful modern life”

With his depictions of our supposedly beautiful reality, Christopher Williams currently occupies 201st place in the world's best art list. To make it perfectly clear: two or three tour buses full, and you've gathered all the artists in the world whose work is even slightly more widely known than the oeuvre of this mocking beauty photographer – that's quite a mark. Anyone who wants to be considered an art connoisseur had better be familiar with Williams and his work.

This is also because Williams has been steadily climbing the rankings for years. In the last 10 years, he has risen from 450+ to his current 201st place, an improvement of 55%. In terms of interest/admiration, this means that Williams' fan base has more than doubled in about a decade. If he continues at this pace, Williams will surpass current leader Andy Warhol .

And that's coming from a photographer , of all people; many an underpaid photographer could provide several top-notch subjects for the secret behind the steady rise.

A hype surrounding Williams' 60th birthday could be one explanation, since it was celebrated in 2016, and the appreciation of art is mysteriously linked to the aging and death of artists. Not here, though; 60 is still too young, and Williams exhibits constantly anyway, so there was no hype.

Williams showed his art in 8 solo exhibitions ; in 2014, 2015, and 2016 there were 7; around 2006 there were 31 group exhibitions , and around 2016 there were 34.

Is this rise related to a general increase in interest in art? Interest in art in general, or in the specific type of art Williams creates?

General interest in art has indeed noticeably increased since around the turn of the millennium, because this was the time when global interconnectedness began. Even if we don't consciously realize it every day, in the last millennium, and indeed the last century, the individual's world was strictly regional, limited to the group of people surrounding them.

Whether medieval village-town community or modern, no longer quite so nationally restricted community of states – (also) in matters of art, people largely kept to themselves; the admired artist was a German, Italian, American and, if things got really bad (… oh, such an exotic thing!), perhaps just barely an African artist.

Today, it is still German, Italian, American and African artists – but networking in the cultural sphere has always been close on the heels of profit-motivated trade relations; the exchange of information facilitated by the Internet brought art closer to a whole range of nations and billions of people for the first time, whether as the subject of regular exhibitions or as a commodity.

While art presentation and trade took place almost exclusively in a few large art centers roughly a generation before us, there are now countless new art enthusiasts; and it would certainly be incredibly interesting to analyze whether these new enthusiasts are responsible to a striking degree for the increasing popularity of artists who present small to medium-sized living room artworks instead of multi-ton installations (for documenta, the Venice Biennale, Art Cologne, etc.).

Perhaps Williams is one of the artists who have gained disproportionate fame through the new art clientele for other reasons, e.g., because a large part of the new art audience shares his dark skin color

Perhaps its rise is also related course correction in the art market Photography , which made its first forays into artistic photography and yet until recently was not allowed to share the heights of artistic creation with the craft-oriented artists, has finally and irrevocably been recognized as art since around the turn of the millennium.

It took a while, even though the “fine art” had already separated itself from the skill-based, handcrafted art in the Age of Enlightenment (from the second half of the 18th century onwards):

The carpenter with artistic ambitions became an artist who worked with wood, a woodcarving artist, a chainsaw artist, and a timber construction artist; the tile setter with a special creative talent became a mosaic artist… Only the photographer, until a few decades ago, was not granted any artistic quality for his “images,” even if he had worked for days to capture a very specific picture on film.

This is thankfully changing; for quite some time now, individual photographers in gaining acceptance as artists. If the image of famous exceptions were to shift towards general acceptance of photography as an art form, and if female photographers (and the rest of the world's female artists) were to experience at least a glimmer of equality in terms of payment for their art, the world would be a better place...

A “recipe for the rise of photographic artists” cannot be generated from all this; however, a prerequisite is certainly that the photographic artist enriches the world with their work, as the photographic art of Christopher Williams does:

Art by Christopher Williams

The title of his first major retrospective , “Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness” (July 27 – November 2, 2014, MoMA New York), aptly announces what is perhaps the most important characteristic of Williams' art: its seductive potential .

Christopher Williams borrowed the exhibition's title from a line in a Jean-Luc Godard documentary. In it, an amateur filmmaker compares his daily job as a factory worker to his hobby of editing self-shot films of the Swiss landscape , viewing the latter as a "Production Line of Happiness" .

Williams, however, is not referring to landscape photography , but rather to photography as a mass phenomenon of consumer culture : Often it's not just about the depiction, but the image itself transforms a rather unspectacular product into a customer's dream; the positive experiences that await upon purchase are also "manufactured" along with it. Besides the emptiness that typically characterizes the life of the typical consumer junkie, these expectations of positive experiences with the dream product are the most proven triggers for purchase.

“Erratum”, which produces perfect results, brings consummate purity to at least one area of ​​life: Image link

“Model #105M” manages to radiate the same well-groomed beauty as after a week of styling, and absolute bliss (as only the product used can provide), immediately after washing her hair: Image link .

“Whole Nut, Yogurt, Whole Peanut, White Whole Nut, Marzipan and Cappuccino” “Rittersport” chocolate , stacked as shown in the picture and then devoured in one go, guarantees absolute chocolate bliss: Image link .

The world is beautiful, and it is well worth looking out for the apples, among which there is absolutely no single one with a worm in it: “Bergische Bauernscheune, Junkersholz, Leichlingen, September 29th, 2009” , Bildlink .

But that too is just an illusion; disappointment is inevitable:

The name of the dishwasher (an erratum = typo) already hints that this "apparent helper" rarely produces a perfectly clean load of dishes like the one in the photo. Usually, even after washing, there are still traces of detergent or food stuck to the dishes; and before the cycle is even started, the dishwasher in some single-person households creates thriving microbe farms that envelop the typically not-so-huge living space in a musty odor for days.

And then there's the dishwasher in a single-person household, costing up to a month's salary for an appliance that supposedly frees the single person from the insane daily task of washing two plates, a cup, and a glass (plus a few bowls, a pot, and a pan if the single person cooks themselves), thereby saving them 5 minutes a day... which they don't actually save at all:

Just to earn the purchase price, a single person would have worked 2825 minutes* – time that could have been spent washing dishes for 565 days in 5 minutes each day. Further time, or additional money earned through labor, is spent choosing, buying, setting up, and connecting the dishwasher; loading and unloading it daily; running an extra rinse cycle when it smells too strongly; buying and paying for special salt, rinse aid, and 17-in-1 dishwasher tablets (which don't actually clean, iron, or vacuum the apartment, even though at that price they really should, and which you should never smell from very close range, because then you'll immediately throw the toxins out of the apartment); buying and using Calgon and similar products; and ordering, supervising, and paying a repair company if the dishwasher breaks down right after the warranty expires, despite using Calgon and similar products…

The smile of the graceful woman with the towel turban is no longer returned by the viewer when he recognizes the true nature of this anthropological wonder: designed in perfect Photoshop use as an “all-world model” that satisfies the sense of beauty of virtually every ethnicity on our planet…

If this is the perfect model for almost everyone, then eventually all people could look like this: 7, 8, 10 billion "Grazie with a towel" + male, transsexual, and any gender counterparts that might be needed by then – AAAARRRGGH!

"Ritter Sport" chocolate can undoubtedly provide absolute chocolate bliss. But for the many people who have no clue about nutrition or food and no desire to learn more, chocolate indulgence is followed by diet frustration. The term "diet" – a life-sustaining lifestyle that balances chocolate bliss with exercise and "reduced food intake" – is now almost exclusively known as an abbreviation for "reduction diet," whose general effects on human metabolism are quite well-researched scientifically: It's a kind of metabolic training program "for maximum energy production despite scarcity" (colloquially known as the yo-yo effect).

Every specific type of weight-loss diet presents its own list of permitted foods, with origins that are more mysterious than scientific. For example, a chocolate diet can arise because journalists want to criticize the scientific establishment ( www.spiegel.de/ ) or because someone "famous enough to write books" wants to solve their weight problems with pop psychology ( The Chocolate Diet: Finally Slim with Pleasure (Link to Amazon) ). This doesn't change the energy content of chocolate.

From a purely physical perspective (material conversion by the body), only this energy content is of interest; if the energy input is higher than the energy consumption, the excess is stored by the anticipatory system of the body as a (fat) reserve.

There is no media statement explaining why Williams chose Ritter Sport chocolate or these specific Ritter Sport varieties. He probably doesn't know himself, but Williams took up his professorship in Düsseldorf shortly before the chocolate photo was taken – so it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that, in exposing the mass-market indulgence of chocolate, he had his many fellow countrymen in mind and chose Ritter Sport simply because the brand is disproportionately represented in German stores.

Milka chocolate from his American homeland would have been the more appropriate choice: The Kraft Heinz Company, with "Milka" and its other 200 brands, holds a leading position in the German market as well, but its products don't have the best reputation due to the frequent use of preservatives and colorings and elaborate, oversized packaging ( www.codecheck.info/ ). Ritter Sport, a German family business with a tradition spanning over 100 years, makes chocolate from the necessary ingredients of sugar, cocoa, milk, and butter (possibly nuts, lecithin, and natural flavorings), thus satisfying a chocolate craving more quickly.

There are no worms in the apples because they are sprayed with pesticides up to 30 times per season – this (definitely) destroys worm larvae, probably also most of the nutrients and incidentally probably a few people suffering from “industrial agriculture disease” (in France Parkinson’s disease is already recognized as an occupational disease of farmers).

Williams certainly doesn't expect you to "give your mind such a boost" when looking at the photos as just happened; but he is surely pleased with every art lover who, by looking at his and other art, is "mentally awakened" to such an extent that he begins to question the depicted things and other things that surround him daily.

With a critical eye, anyone can see that the dishwasher deserves a top spot in the "consumer rip-off" category for a small household; some go even further and banish the stove from their kitchen, whose cooking space can meet the needs of a large family, along with 12 to 20 electrical appliances that don't deliver what their product descriptions promise. This creates newly usable living space, for example, for a large table to sit and talk with people, a bit of new life, sparked by a little attention, sparked by a little art..

Christopher Williams' artistic development shows how he himself gradually became more and more attentive:

At the time of this (first) retrospective, Christopher Williams already has an impressive 35-year career behind him. His flirtation with photography began early (presumably a natural consequence of being born and raised in Los Angeles), and initially included an exploration of format and presentation.

“Untitled (Cafes – Intimate Grouping)” from 1982-83 plays very appealingly with both, as you can see moma.org

(Perhaps naturally, given his hometown) Christopher Williams quickly discovered his particular interest in the products of the (luxury) consumer world and their buyers.

“Young Hee Kim and Gyung-Hwa Han, Ravenswood Apartments, Los Angeles, January 24, 1992” , kurzelinks.de/p3hl , shows customers of this (luxury) consumer world :

Two wealthy young women who can afford an apartment in one of the most expensive residential areas of Los Angeles; “The Ravenswood” is a historic Art Deco building constructed in 1930 by Paramount Pictures and which housed, for example, Mae West and Ava Gardner.

The beautiful house has been a listed historical monument of Los Angeles and is located in the Hancock Park neighborhood, built in the 1920s around a private golf club. The area is only moderately densely populated, the buildings are architecturally diverse and distinctive, and the approximately 10,000 residents are affluent, educated, and mostly no longer young. It's an "enclave of the rich," into which the two young Asian women fit perfectly, judging by their hairstyle, makeup, clothing, and jewelry.

At first glance, that's all there is to it. The exhibition visitor, who glances briefly or with normal intensity, registers two attractive young women, richly blessed with material possessions, sitting at a table (who live in Ravenswood, if he knows it).

Anyone who studies the photo more closely will see two young women who go to great lengths in their adaptation, even wearing contact lenses to transform their beautiful deep brown eyes into blue American eyes (it doesn't quite work; against the dark background, they appear as deep blue to dark blue eyes, which probably detracts much less from the overall aesthetic beauty of the wearers than light blue eyes would have).

If the viewer has gotten this far, he is also ready for the riddle that the artist poses with the picture : Why did the woman on the left remove a contact lens and thus destroy the dark blue twin gaze?

Aside from that, he sees two young people who are obviously incredibly wealthy (incredibly wealthy men, but as soon as he thinks that, he also thinks that assumption is politically incorrect), but who seem to be psychologically somewhere between nerve-wracking boredom and profound unhappiness. Furthermore, the observant viewer sees two brides he wouldn't want to meet in the dark at night…

In addition to exploring the beautiful emptiness of modernity, Christopher Williams has also focused on the African continent ; since 1996 he has had a studio in Dakar, Senegal, where works such as the following are created: moma.org) .

He also shoots Super 8 short films (the most important projects were created from 1980 to the early 1990s), works with lithographs such as this one: “Untitled” , Texte zur Kunst, Kassel, Germany, 1992, moma.org -> Williams (although Williams himself never attended documenta) and creates large photo series such as “For Example: The World Is Beautiful” , 1993–2001 and “For Example: Eighteen Lessons on Industrial Society” , 2003–present.

That Williams' photos are not always as harmlessly beautiful as they appear is also very clearly demonstrated, for example, by Christopher Williams' book "Angola to Vietnam" , first published in 1989.

On the surface, we see a slightly ironic homage to one of the most famous books in the history of photography: Karl Blossfeldt's "Urformen der Kunst" (Original Forms of Art) , published in 1928 in Berlin by Ernst Wasmuth. The photographer Karl Blossfeldt, born in 1865, is known in the history of photography as a representative of the "New Objectivity" movement .

Towards the end of the Weimar Republic, he became famous for two books of strictly formal plant photographs . “Urformen der Kunst” (Primordial Forms of Art) is the first volume, and Blossfeldt saw these primal forms in the plants that the book presents page after page in black and white close-ups – an impressive gallery of plant sculptures was presented by the trained sculptor and modeler with a passion for photography; in Berlin, the book was an immediate sensation.

Today it is interesting again, but in the 1980s, at the height of the colorful picture euphoria that was finally possible for everyone with the first affordable cameras, it was not a topic that made even educated people's toenails curl in awe.

For an American conceptual artist born in 1956, mocking the old masters of past generations was quite natural; many of the viewers at the time were royally amused by Williams' answer to Blossfeldt's "petrified nature": Williams photographed glass models from the Harvard University Botanical Museum in exactly the same style as Blossfeldt's exhibits, thereby finally turning the plants, which appeared petrified, into (silicate) rock.

Many recipients completely missed the fact that Williams wasn't just making jokes about Blossfeldt, but that in his 27-part work he exclusively depicted plants from countries where a series of political assassinations had been committed in the past decade…

A larkspur from Blossfeldt

A tuft of herb

A sea holly

An inexpensive (and definitely worth its price) reprint of the photos from the two Blossfeldt books with plant photographs (the second was published shortly before Blossfeldt's death) is available from Motto Distribution .

“Vietnam” from 1989 shows Blaschka Model 272, from 1892, Genus no. 8594, family Cucurbitaceae, species Luffa cylindrica, gelatin silver print, 28 x 35.5 cm: moma.org -> Williams -> Vietnam .

“Blaschka Model” chosen by Christopher Williams as a symbol for “Vietnam” warrants some explanation for those unfamiliar with Blaschka Models: They are glass models by father and son Blaschka, who produced thousands of realistic glass representations of botanical and zoological motifs between 1863 and 1936.

Father Leopold Blaschka, after training as a goldsmith and glassblower, developed “glass spinning” specifically for this purpose; son Rudolph intensively studied the flora of Central Germany and the fauna of the Mediterranean, North and Baltic Seas.

Together, the Bohemian glassblowers created the most enchanting and yet most accurate series of glass models of marine animals and plants the world has ever seen. Blaschka models were shipped throughout the civilized world of the time; as is often the case with glass, of the several thousand models produced, only about 1,000 remain today.

Images of the 289 exhibits can be viewed at the Corning Museum of Glass , Corning, NY 14830, USA or at cmog.org/collection (search: blaschka). In Berlin, there are 32 “real Blaschkas” like this chic tree-tube worm: image link , in the Museum für Naturkunde and in the Zoological Teaching Collection of the Humboldt University of Berlin .

The largest coherent collection of glass flower models is owned by the Harvard Museum of Natural History ; one of Harvard University's most popular attractions, drawing over 10,000 visitors annually (viewable at hmnh.harvard.edu/glass-flowers ).

Back to Christopher Williams (whose art has only been presented here in a very limited way, so there is still much to discover).

Christopher Williams' Path to Art

Christopher Williams was born in 1956 in Los Angeles, California (USA) and grew up practically in the heart of the film and television industries, which shaped his future artistic output. His grandfather and father worked in Hollywood as special effects artists and were often accompanied to work by the young Christopher; for example, there is a documented encounter between Christopher Williams and the German-born filmmaker Oskar Fischinger , who showed him flip books and abstract animated films.

Christopher Williams stayed away from film and studied art. In the 1970s and early 1980s, he studied at the California Institute of Arts in Valencia, just outside Los Angeles, earning a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in 1979 and an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in 1981. He studied under the first generation of West Coast conceptual artists John Baldessari , and Douglas Huebler taught there

Christopher Williams: Public life, exhibitions, awards

Immediately after graduating, in 1982, Williams had his first solo exhibition at the Jancar-Kuhlenschmidt Gallery in Los Angeles. He continued in this vein, with approximately 10 exhibitions per year, across all the major centers of the art world.

Christopher Williams can look back on approximately 300 public exhibitions to date (April 2017), including over 50 solo exhibitions and around 250 group exhibitions. 92 of these were in the USA, 64 in Germany, 21 in France, 18 in Austria, and 12 in England; the remaining exhibitions took place in other countries around the world that have significant art venues in the field of contemporary art.

Christopher Williams' art is always accessible in the following public art collections:

• Germany : Haubrok Collection Berlin, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Grässlin Art Space St. Georgen
• Italy : MAMbo Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Bologna
• Canada : Carleton University Art Gallery Ottawa, ON
• Mexico : Museo Jumex, Mexico City
• Austria : Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation (MUMOK), Vienna
• Switzerland : Fotomuseum Winterthur, UBS Art Collection Zurich
• United Kingdom : Tate Britain, London
• USA : Hammer Museum + MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC

• In 2005, Williams received the Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
• In 2005 and 2006 he received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts to be able to work freely and participate in competitions.
• In 2014, the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation awarded the PhotoBook Awards “Photography Catalogue of the Year” to Christopher Williams for the catalogue of the exhibition “The Production Line of Happiness” and “Christopher Williams: Printed in Germany”.

Christopher Williams' work today and in the future

Christopher Williams has become one of the leading conceptual artists of his generation , producing a large and concise body of work using photography. He draws on his extensive knowledge of the history of photography and film, architecture and design to formulate (more beside than behind the camera) a critique of late capitalist society in a clear, ironic visual language, where no image can be reduced to its superficial content.

Since 2008 he has been teaching as a professor of photography at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, but Christopher Williams continues to work; his art is still exhibited all over the world, soon in Brussels and London:

• From April 20, 2017, the exhibition “Le musée absent” will be on display at the WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art in Brussels, where works by Christopher Williams can be seen alongside art by Francis Alÿs, Marcel Broodthaers, Marlene Dumas, Jimmie Durham, Jana Euler, Ellen Gallagher, Isa Genzken , Thomas Hirschhorn, Carsten Höller, Martin Kippenberger , Lucy McKenzie, Oscar Murillo, Felix Nussbaum, Gerhard Richter , Wolfgang Tillmans , Rosemarie Trockel , Luc Tuymans, Peter Wächtler and others.
• The solo exhibition “Christopher Williams – Open Letter: The Family Drama Refunctioned?” is on display at the David Zwirner Gallery, London, until May 20, 2017.

Christopher Williams teaches his students the art of precisely creating illusions using photographic techniques; the full title of “Erratum” illustrates what needs to be considered in this process:

“Erratum, AGFA Color (oversaturated), Camera: Robertson Process Model 31 580 Serial #F97-116, Lens: Apo Nikkor 455 mm stopped down to f90,
Lighting: 16,000 Watts Tungsten 3200 degrees kelvin, Film: Kodak Plus-X Pan ASA 125, Kodak Pan Masking for contrast and color correction, Film developer: Kodak HC 110 Dilution B (1:7), used @ 68 degrees Fahrenheit, Exposure and development times (in minutes):, Exposure Development, Red Filter Kodak Wratten PM25 2'30 4'40, Green Filter Kodak Wratten PM61 10'20 3'30, Blue Filter Kodak Wratten PM47B 7'00 7'00,
Paper: Fujicolor Crystal Archive Type C Glossy, Chemistry: Kodak RA-4, Processor: Tray, Exposure and development times (in seconds), Exposure Development Red Filter Kodak Wratten #29 8, Green Filter Kodak Wratten #99 15'5 1'10 @ 92 degrees Fahrenheit, Blue Filter Kodak Wratten #9830'5, October 7, 2000”

Only the artist himself is not named, which is part of the “concept of the conceptual artist”: Christopher Williams hardly takes any photographs himself anymore, but has the perfect stagings in the visual language of advertising created by professional photo studios, only always with one small, crucial mistake.

Williams teaches his students the art of creating perfect illusions so that they will be able to question and destroy those illusions.

Christopher Williams can also pass this ability on to attentive viewers of his art in the future: the precise second look that reveals what lies hidden behind the beautiful smooth surface.

In times of fake news and dwindling trust in the media as the public's appointed informants, these are not methods for approaching art, but techniques that can help democracies survive…

Lina cream

Passionate author with lively art interest

www. kunstplaza .de