Spring is here, the snow is melting …

I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go….

LICHT, LADEN, BLITZ

The apples are hanging, but they could fall at any moment. So ripe and so heavy. The apples are in place, the lights ready to pop, the camera is in position, the framing has been determined. With each passing moment cash is moving from one hand to another. Light moves from one surface to another. These sweet apples move from one state to another. Gravity will win, the apples will fall. But for the moment, they stand firm and proud. Who among you could not fall for them? These wonderful forms held in place by small but strong sap-filled arms. Romantic and swollen. To him they are models or light modulators, stand-ins. As his chemicals change they appear to be growing softer, larger. They are changing to attract him. He has lost his distance. He is forced to swallow….

No way, you have got to be joking . Ok let’s start again ….

I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away…

A model is a representation of a system.

Screwing on our Soviet-made lens to photograph a riot in 1977, for example, or a nude comrade in the morning, it seemed agreed that photography, too, was part of the experiment.

The Scheimpflug Rule:

This technique is based on the application of the Scheimpflug rule. If the camera is set up facing a subject in the form of a plane surface, which is not at right angles to the axis of the camera, but makes a more or less acute angle with it, then if the subject is to be rendered sharp throughout not withstanding the oblique angle, the planes of the subject, the lens, and the camera back, when prolonged, must intersect at one and the same point. The condition can be fulfilled by swinging or tilting the camera back or lensboard, or both. In practice, of course, these adjustments are not made with a protractor and rule, but by simple observation of the image on the ground glass. Again, too specific. Let’s try again.

To focus is to assert a preference for one surface over another. To choose between the light meter or the green dress. How to represent them? Let’s say that both, on that afternoon, trembled slightly.

Close the darkroom door. You are in semi-darkness, moist and cool, fragrant with chemicals. Left behind is the roar of the city, industry, the sounds of labor, transportation, the masses. Alone at last, quiet and still, time to work. As the images appear in the trays, it becomes clear that you have not escaped, you are simply in a smaller, muted space filled with images of industry, labor, transportation, the masses.

Shaking your qualities to blossom.

How does a camera cutaway produced in East Germany differ from one produced in West Germany?

Just exactly where we’re going I cannot say, but we might even leave the USA…

Open the door. Begin your descent down the ramp. To your right there are four shelves with approximately 40 catalogues representing the work of gallery artists. To your left you see the receptionists (Erin and Poppy). As you approach the desk, you are greeted with smiles. On the desk along with other printed materials you find a press release, announcement cards, etc…

Continue into the galleries. There, you will find the apples, still hanging…

1. Kodak three point reflection guide©1968 Eastman Kodak Company, 1968 2. Release 3. Release 4. Arch”aologie 5. Michelin XZ, Plaubel, Makina 67 6. Ethnographie 7. Th’e^atre Verit’e 8. Varieties 9. Mozambique 10. Tokyo 11. La Palma 12. Bruxelles, van Laack 13. Release 14. Release 15. Release 16. Westkunst, Dziga-Vertov Group, Konrad Klapheck, Turkish moon, Kapitalistischer Realismus 17. The photographic industry that programmed the camera 18. The industrial complex that programmed the photographic industry 19. The socio-economic system that programmed the industrial complex 20. Christopher Williams 21. Couleur Europ’eenne 22. Couleur Sovi’etique 23. Couleur Chinoise 24. Cartridge Replacement 25. Release 26. Release 27. Program: Views according to which this device and the various theories framing it will function for the artistic production the same way as the artistic production functions as advertising for the order under which it is produced. There will be no other space than this view according to which etc… 28. Cartridge Replacement 29. Release 30. Release 31. Release 32. Release 33. Release 34. Release 35. Release 36. Release 37. Reread this program again and again, become its author, correct and repeat it, distribute it, and when we are all its author, the old world will crumble to make way for… 38. Release 39. Release 40, 69, 70, 71, 72, 99, release, release…

This will be Christopher Williams’s fifth solo exhibition at David Zwirner. In 2010, the artist’s work was the focus of solo exhibitions at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany and Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, and his work was included in the group shows The Artist’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Atlas, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof’ia, Madrid. In 2011, Williams will be participating in upcoming exhibitions at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium; The House of Art, Cesk’e Bud ejovice, Czech Republic; and the Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany.