Christopher Williams: R59C Keystone Shower Door — Chrome/Raindrop

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Three children in the backseat of a car on their way to school, a brown shag carpet on brown ceramic tiles, wheat stalks in the spring, an exhibition wall, three Michelin tires, three stock pots, one green suitcase, and a yellow frying pan: an exhibition of works by Christopher Williams, on view at the Hong Kong gallery.

Deeply political and historical, Williams’s work addresses the visual and informational structures that define everyday life. Working in a variety of media, including photography, video, and installation, his multifaceted practice incorporates references to multiple sources and precedents, including the artist’s own ever-expanding inventory of imagery and discursive materials.

Many of the works that will be on view in Hong Kong are from a body of work Williams developed in the 2010s that were informed by the artist’s interest in two important Cold War era publications: Ty i Ja (You and I), a Polish magazine created by the Women’s League that focused on domestic life, fashion, and culture, and Lui (Him), a French pinup magazine specializing in female nudes and erotica, which was source material for Guy Debord’s influential 1974 situationist film La Société du Spectacle (Society of the Spectacle).

Epitomizing, while also critically undermining, many discursive binaries within Cold War society—such as supposedly male versus female content, and Eastern soviet versus Western capitalist culture—these seemingly disparate but influential magazines served as source material for Williams, who, over the course of several years, assembled detailed archives devoted to each. Laid out on large tables within his studio, they became a kind of visual play script, which was then adapted to produce these photographic works—some closely recreating his source materials, and others recasting their formats and structures—that reflect on the social conditions of modern life.

The exhibition in Hong Kong, the artist’s first solo show in Greater China, follows standard pose, at David Zwirner Paris in 2021, and Footwear (Adapted for Use), at the gallery’s 34 East 69th Street location in New York in 2020, and will mark his eleventh solo show with David Zwirner.

ABOUT THE ARTIST / ORGANISER

Christopher Williams was born in Los Angeles in 1956. Since 2000, his work has been represented by David Zwirner. He has had ten solo exhibitions at the gallery.

Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness marked the artist's first major museum survey, which spanned thirty-five years of work. The exhibition was first on view at The Art Institute of Chicago in 2014, followed by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Whitechapel Gallery, London in 2015.

Also in 2014, Williams was the first artist to receive the Photography Catalogue of the Year, presented by the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation PhotoBook Awards, for the two volumes specially designed and published on the occasion of his touring survey, The Production Line of Happiness (exhibition catalogue) and Printed in Germany (artist book).

Other solo exhibitions include those held at Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover, Germany (2018); La Triennale di Milano (2017); ETH Zurich, Institute gta, Zürich (2017); Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany (2011); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium (2011); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (2010); Bergen Kunsthall, Norway (2010); Kunsthalle Zürich (2007); Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2006); Secession, Vienna (2005); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2005); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1997); and Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (1995).