Photographer Christopher Williams explores ’The Production Line of Happiness’ at MoMA, New York

Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Thank you for signing up to Wallpaper. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Conceptual artist Christopher Williams’ first retrospective is now on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York - but don’t tell him that. 'I’m uncomfortable with the term conceptual artist, but I’m equally uncomfortable with the idea that I’m a photographer,' he says. 'Also I was incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of a survey or retrospective.'
Coming from another artist, such statements could be taken as pure contrarianism, deployed to shield, wedge, distance, or simply whine, but for Williams they are a way to reset expectations and invite the viewer into the cross-disciplinary territory he has spent the last 35 years conquering. It is a terrain populated with photographic artifacts (cutaway cameras, Kodak color guides) and glossy ideals (apples, soap, attractive women) that are so slightly and precisely askew, vexing even as they delight. Out of analogue serial production he coaxes endless parallels.
At 58, Los Angeles-born Williams has the easygoing yet brainy charm of a teacher - and he is, at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he followed Bernd Becher into the role of professor of photography. He compares himself to the magnifying bubble on his iPhone. 'You can move that little bubble around to enlarge images and words, and I think that’s what I do,' he says. 'Instead of being locked behind the camera, I move around. I’m often beside the camera, never in front of the camera, sometimes behind the camera. And I’m as much a photographer as I am a picture editor and a graphic designer.'
The full range of Williams’ practice is represented at MoMA, where 100 photographs - hung low and spaced generously, as if to allow room for their unwieldy titles - are joined by video and film works as well as what the museum describes as 'architectural interventions'. Williams looked to that last category as a way to eschew the inherently backward-looking nature of a retrospective.
The exhibition begins with striking red graphics taken from the show’s previous incarnation at the Art Institute of Chicago. It follows with wall fragments from previous MoMA exhibitions (including the recent Magritte blockbuster, entitled 'The Mystery of the Ordinary'), and finishes by looking forward, via a cinderblock wall, to the retrospective’s spring 2015 outing at Whitechapel Gallery.
'This is an exhibition that redefines the idea of montage, both montage in space - as here photography has been expanded into architecture and as a form of installation art - but also a montage of so many ideas within a single picture frame,' says MoMA curator Roxana Marcoci, who describes Williams as 'a cinephilic artist with a Brechtian flair for quotation'.
For all of the layered complexity and bold non sequiturs of Williams’ work, there is plenty of pure enjoyment to be had in 'The Production Line of Happiness' (a title borrowed from a Jean-Luc Godard documentary) and in the accompanying catalogue-cum-artist’s book. A few steps away from the photo of a 1964 Renault balanced on its side there is a close-up of a pair of beetles (the insects, not the cars) flipped on their backs in surrender.
And when it comes to portraits, the human subjects are distinctively joyful. 'If you look at the work of many of my colleagues, nobody’s smiling. Photography and conceptual art is a very serious business,' says Williams. 'So I thought, I have to find a space to have a position - smiling is maybe the area I can work in.'
The exhibition, titled 'The Production Line of Happiness', is peppered with bold graphics taken from the show’s previous incarnation at the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as what the museum describes as 'architectural interventions'
Williams' work is populated with photographic artifacts (cutaway cameras, Kodak color guides) and glossy ideals (apples, soap, attractive women), such as in 'Kodak Three Point Reflection Guide / © 1968, Eastman Kodak Company, 1968 / (Meiko laughing) / Vancouver, B.C. / April 6, 2005', 2005.
'Untitled (Study in Red) / Dirk Schaper Studio, Berlin / April 30, 2009', 2009. Collection of Constance R Caplan
'Bergische Bauernscheune, Junkersholz / Leichlingen, September 29th, 2009', 2010.
Williams' work coaxes endless parallels out of analogue serial production. A few steps away from this photo of a 1964 Renault balanced on its side there is a close-up of a pair of beetles (the insects, not the cars) flipped on their backs in surrender.
MoMA curator Roxana Marcoci says, 'This is an exhibition that redefines the idea of montage, both montage in space - as here photography has been expanded into architecture and as a form of installation art - but also a montage of so many ideas within a single picture frame'
For all of the layered complexity and bold non sequiturs of Williams’ work, there is plenty of pure enjoyment to be had in the show, which borrows its title from a Jean-Luc Godard documentary
'TecTake Luxus Strandkorb grau/weiß / Model no.: 400636 / Material: wood/plastic / Dimensions (height/width/depth): 154 cm × 116 cm × 77 cm / Weight: 49 kg / Manufactured by Ningbo Jin Mao Import & Export Co., Ltd, / Ningbo, Zhejiang, China for TecTake GmbH, Igersheim, Germany / Model: Zimra Geurts, Playboy Netherlands Playmate of the Year 2012 / Studio Rhein Verlag, Düsseldorf / February 1, 2013 / (Zimra stretching).',
2013
'Punta Hicacos, Varadero, Cuba / February 14, 2000', 2000
'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 colour 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', 2005
ADDRESS
MoMA
11 West 53 Street
New York
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
-
São Paulo Biennial 2023: activism, repressed cultures and South America’s art history under the lens
The 35th São Paulo Biennial considers ‘Choreographies of the Impossible’ as the theme. Amah-Rose Abrams reports on what to see
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Jacqueline Rabun’s sculptural jewellery design goes on show in London
‘Jacqueline Rabun: A Retrospective’ opens at London’s Carpenters Workshop Gallery
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Tokujin Yoshioka’s flaming glass cauldron sets Tokyo alight
Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka plays with fire with an exhibition of glass torches and cauldrons, on view at 21_21 Design Sight Gallery 3 in Tokyo (until 5 November 2023)
By Danielle Demetriou Published
-
Ken Gun Min’s mixed-media montages reframe cultural influences and queer identity
South Korean-born, LA-based Ken Gun Min illusively combines painting, embroidery and illustration
By Pei-Ru Keh Published
-
Jack Pierson’s photographs and sculptures go on show in New York
Artist Jack Pierson draws on life experiences for a new show, ‘Pomegranates’, at Lisson Gallery, New York
By Hannah Silver Published
-
TikTok gets tangible: artist Devon Rodriguez opens his first exhibition, in New York
Devon Rodriguez, who until now has reserved his work for his 31 million TikTok followers, has opened his first exhibition at UTA Artist Space’s pop-up gallery in Chelsea, New York
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Man Ray’s sculptures go on show in New York
‘Man Ray: Other Objects’ opens at Luxembourg + Co, New York, revealing their author’s ‘artistic revolution’
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Kim Gordon on art and the iPhone, band dynamics, and her next step
American visual artist and musician Kim Gordon, formerly of Sonic Youth, discusses her recent show of paintings, creative collaboration and new ventures
By Mary Cleary Published
-
‘These Americans’: Will Vogt documents the USA’s rich at play
Will Vogt’s photo book ‘These Americans’ is a deep dive into a world of privilege and excess, spanning 1969 to 1996
By Sophie Gladstone Published
-
Kyle Bell's films are an expression of the indigenous experience in America
Kyle Bell, who was mentored by Spike Lee as part of Rolex's Mentors and the Protégés programme, is a self-taught video maker from Tulsa, Oklahoma
By Rosa Bertoli Published
-
Forrest Myers is off the wall at Catskill Art Space this summer
Forrest ‘Frosty’ Myers makes his mark at Catskill Art Space, NY, celebrating 50 years of his monumental Manhattan installation, The Wall
By Pei-Ru Keh Published