Art Institute of Chicago
2 total works
Christopher Williams
by Matthew S. Witkovsky, Roxana Marcoci, Mark Godfrey, and Christopher Williams
Published 1 January 1991
A handsome volume charting the thirty-year career of a widely celebrated, American-born conceptual artist Representing Christopher Williams's first publication with a major American museum, this illuminating and unusual volume is equal parts artist's book and exhibition catalogue. Over the course of his thirty-year career, Williams (b. 1956) has crafted photographs that engage-often through uncanny mimicry-the conventions of photojournalism, picture archives, and commercial imagery, as well as their sociopolitical contexts and implications. The book includes a trio of essays by curators Mark Godfrey, Roxana Marcoci, and Matthew S. Witkovsky, which explore Williams's engagement with his artistic peers and predecessors, with cinema (particularly the film-essay), and with the methods and modes of display and publicity in the art world, in addition to a transcript of a talk Williams delivered on the work of John Chamberlain. These more conventional contributions are "interrupted" by additional historical and contemporary textual and visual materials that were selected by the artist himself and are occasionally presented in facsimile form.
An exhibition history, bibliography, and illustrated list of works round out the publication.
An exhibition history, bibliography, and illustrated list of works round out the publication.
This concise yet breathtaking book is the first publication of Sarah Charlesworth’s (1947–2013) photographic series collectively entitled Stills. Charlesworth made a name for herself as a member of the New York–based Pictures Generation artists when, in 1980, she produced this series of 14 large-scale photographs. Like her previous work, the images were appropriated from newspapers, which Charlesworth re-photographed. The images that comprise Stills hauntingly depict people falling or jumping from buildings, the suspended moment further dramatized by the photographs’ scale: Charlesworth’s prints measure over six feet tall. Seven of the 14 photographs were exhibited in 1980 at the apartment of the artist’s dealer, but the other half was not printed until 2012, when she created a unique artist’s proof edition from her original negatives for the Art Institute of Chicago. Until now, the full series has never before been published or exhibited together. Following an essay by Matthew S. Witkovsky, this landmark publication presents Stills in its entirety for the first time.
Distributed for The Art Institute of Chicago
Distributed for The Art Institute of Chicago
Exhibition Schedule:
The Art Institute of Chicago
(09/17/14–01/04/15)