Radio / Rauhfaser / Television offers a provisional summation of Christopher Williams’s ongoing research into contemporary mutations of social realism. The exhibition is centered in part on the politically engaged theater of the German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz. Williams recently recorded Kroetz’s 1972 radio play Inklusive using vintage audio equipment from both East and West Germany, and the play will be broadcast on Chicago’s Lumpen Radio (105.5 FM) at several points during the show’s run. The strong sense of class consciousness in Kroetz’s work is hinted at in Williams’s use of Rauhfaser, an archetypal brand of German wallpaper that serves as scenographic shorthand for a proletarian aesthetic. A single photograph and two hand-painted glass signs hang in the gallery alongside video footage and historical documents displayed in six purpose-built vitrines. Its modest scale notwithstanding, the exhibition has an almost manifesto-like quality to it, outlining both Williams’s overarching intellectual passions – an interrogation of the way in which our visual culture is both staged and seen – and the timeless question of art’s relation to societal questions.
IMAGE:
Christopher Williams
Blocking Template:
Ikea Kitchen
(Three-quarter)
Studio Thomas Borho, Oberkasseler Str. 39, Düsseldorf, Germany
September 10, 2022, 2023
Archival pigment print on cotton rag paper
Print: 11 7/8 x 19 inches
30.2 x 48.3 cm
Framed: 26 x 33 5/8 x 1 1/4 inches
66 x 85.4 x 3.2 cm
Edition of 10, 4 AP
Signed verso
WILCH0620
© Christopher Williams. Courtesy the artist, David Zwirner and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne.
The Neubauer Collegium gratefully acknowledges the Brenda Mulmed Shapiro Fund for its generous support of the gallery, and is grateful to Conor O’Neil and the Danielson Foundation for their additional support of this exhibition.
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
"The exhibition in its entirety could be conceived as an arrangement of information," Neubauer Collegium Curator Dieter Roelstraete says in a video made for the occasion.
Artist and critic Michelle Grabner reviews Christopher Williams: Radio/Rauhfaser/Television in the Summer issue of Artforum.
Artforum's Art Guide includes Radio/Rauhfaser/Television in its index of "must-see" shows.
The contemporary art magazine Mousse has selected the artist's Neubauer Collegium exhibition as a feature spotlight.
Chicago's leading art magazine features the exhibition in its list of must-see shows for February.
This exhibition featured recent work by conceptual photographer Christopher Williams.
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Artist and critic Michelle Grabner reviews Christopher Williams: Radio/Rauhfaser/Television in the Summer issue of Artforum.
Chicago's leading art magazine features the exhibition in its list of must-see shows for February.
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
Artforum's Art Guide includes Radio/Rauhfaser/Television in its index of "must-see" shows.
The contemporary art magazine Mousse has selected the artist's Neubauer Collegium exhibition as a feature spotlight.
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
This exhibition featured recent work by conceptual photographer Christopher Williams.
Carousel with 3 slides shown at a time. Use the Previous and Next buttons to navigate, or the slide dot buttons at the end to jump to slides.
