R59C Keystone Shower Door — Chrome/Raindrop | Christopher Williams Solo Exhibition Introduction

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. In spring 2021, Williams’s solo exhibition werbung: adapted for use was on view at Haubrok Foundation, Berlin, and from 2019 to 2020, C/O Berlin presented a solo show titled MODEL: Kochgeschirre, Kinder, Viet Nam (Angepasst zum Benutzen).

Exhibition Details

• R59C Keystone Shower Door — Chrome/Raindrop | Christopher Williams Solo Exhibition
• Date: 20 Jan - 18 Feb 2023
• Venue: David Zwirner
• Address: 5–6/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong

Information Source: David Zwirner's official website