CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS
2015-05-11A finger poised on a camera – its open back revealing the film roll and mechanism – sets the scene for this exhibition of photographs about photography. Somewhere between a film director, a picture editor and an art historian, American artist Christopher Williams (b.1956) investigates photography as the defining medium of modernism.
Williams’ exquisite prints reveal the unexpected beauty and cultural resonance of commercial, industrial and instructional photography. Often working with set designers, models and technicians, Williams’ technically precise pictures recall Cold War era imagery and 1960s advertising, as well as invoking histories of art, photography and cinema. His photographs are elements at play in a larger system including architecture, exhibition design, books, posters, videos, vitrines and signage that investigates the stage sets of the art world and the publicity structures on which they rely.
Opposite – Bergische Bauernscheune, Junkersholz, Leichlingen, September 29, 2009, 2010
Exhibition runs through to June 21st, 2015
Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High St
London
E1 7QX
