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

Christopher Williams's exhibition at MoMa in New York. Photographs are hung low and spaced out. On the floor, there is an art piece painted yellow with writing on it.
The full range of Christopher Williams’ practice is represented at MoMA in New York, where 100 photographs - hung low and spaced generously, as if to allow room for their unwieldy titles - are joined by video and film works
(Image credit: Christopher Williams)

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.'

Christopher Williams's exhibition at MoMa in New York. Photographs are hung low and spaced out. There is a concrete wall in the center with a photograph on it.

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'

(Image credit: Christopher Williams)

Photograph of a woman smiling in yellow towels.

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. 

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artist; David Zwirner, New York/London; and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne © Christopher Williams)

Photograph of a woman pulling on a red sock.

'Untitled (Study in Red) / Dirk Schaper Studio, Berlin / April 30, 2009', 2009. Collection of Constance R Caplan 

(Image credit: © Christopher Williams)

Photograph of an apple tree branch with red apples and leaves.

'Bergische Bauernscheune, Junkersholz / Leichlingen, September 29th, 2009', 2010. 

(Image credit: Courtesy of the artist; David Zwirner, New York/London; and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne)

Black & white photograph of an old-school car turned on its side.

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.

(Image credit: © Christopher Williams)

Christopher Williams's exhibition at MoMa in New York. Photographs are hung low and spaced out.

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'

(Image credit: Christopher Williams)

Christopher Williams's exhibition at MoMa in New York. Photographs are hung low and spaced out.

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

(Image credit: Christopher Williams)

Black & white photograph of a laughing woman with her check bare, sitting on a piece of beach furniture.

'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

(Image credit: © Christopher Williams)

A photograph of a palm tree on a beach, with the sea in the distance.

'Punta Hicacos, Varadero, Cuba / February 14, 2000', 2000 

(Image credit: © Christopher Williams)

A photograph of a dishwasher with dishes inside from the back, without the case.

'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 

(Image credit: © Christopher Williams)

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