Łódź, October 1, 2004
Christopher Williams, 2004 · Gallery 203 · Floor 2
Alright, start with the cloth. White, little blue squares. Hanging off the machine, piled in neat folds below. Spotless by the yard. OK, now look at the room. Peeling paint. Crumbling brick. A bare tube light. Plastic thrown over the machine. This is a fabric factory in Poland. The place looks like it’s falling apart. But that cloth has no idea. The artist is Christopher Williams. American. Grew up in Los Angeles. He’s part of a big art show in Poland, and they’re using old factory buildings to show the work. Alright, so now think about what a good catalog picture can sell you. A few yards of cloth, sure. But also a clean kitchen. Fresh curtains. A little feeling that your life could be nicer. So… a lot can ride on some blue squares. Williams works with the people who make those pictures. Photographers. Models. People who build sets and get the lights right. He runs the job like a director making a movie. His father worked in special effects in Hollywood. He grew up around people whose whole job was making fake stuff look real. He’s like the magician’s kid who watched the cape get ironed. Anyway, so there are two jobs to think about here. Making the cloth. And making you want it. Maybe that’s the trick. He uses that second job to get you looking at the first. Look at what he leaves in the picture. The wall. The tube light. The plastic sheet. You could crop all that out and have a nice picture of some fabric. But he gives you the place it came from, too. Then photographs the whole mess like it’s for sale.
More from Frank
- Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites — Mike Kelley, 1991–1999
- House of Hope — Montien Boonma, 1996–1997
- Paradox of Praxis 1 (Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing) — Francis Alÿs, 1997
- Wall Drawing #1144, Broken Bands of Color in Four Directions — Sol LeWitt, 2004
- Warm Broad Glow — Glenn Ligon, 2005
- Untitled — Wade Guyton, 2006