Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Christopher Williams at C/O Berlin


(link)

"If I hang these pictures low maybe the workers will revolt" and here maybe if you post only two photos the art-polloi will re, uh, joice. Feel lucky, C/O Berlin's instagram got only the apples, posted like 4 times with differing amounts of, sigh, white framing around it. Read with sarcasm: "Williams’s work does not end when the photograph is taken, but includes all elements of its display, such as printing, matting, framing, hanging height, titles, and so on, as crucial aspects of the reception of the image." Isn't this all starting to sound like a brand package of institutional critique from the Pictures Generation? Blankness becomes its own commodity, its own bowtie. And you there, David Zwirner shopper, you get a lovely photograph and perhaps a piece of a museum wall to coronate it. That's right Williams ships the walls from the previous museum because one institutional halo is not enough. The curator is coming to elucidate it with a long text any moment now. Any moment now.

Oh and the greatest ploy of all? There are installation shots of the exhibition on Zwirner's website.


Playing CAWD like Golf, aiming for the lowest score possible: Ian Rosen at The Finley
Read too: Christopher Williams at MoMA