In their own ways the methodologies
used by the model, and by the stylist, and by the lighting technician are all
every bit as complex as the machinery of the camera. I'm not sure I would have
been able to arrive at this understanding without seeing these camera cross
sections interspersed with the other images that reveal
typically-hidden views. For example an image of a
woman photographed from behind reveals not only the calloused bottoms
of her feet, but also several binder clips fastened to her garments so as to make them appear snug and smooth from the front. This calls my
attention to the choice of angle that the photo is taken from, and how that
works hand in hand with the choice of placement for those binder clips. This photograph is a very subtle subversion of a conspiracy between these two
practitioners that must exist in order to show the viewer only one perspective.
I am so used to reading the content of photographs as they are
"meant" to be seen, that these very restrained indicators of propaganda may have
been inscrutable to me without multiple, explicit references to the
inner-workings of the camera.
Likewise, when I find myself stooping
down slightly in order to "see" the photos on the wall, I am made
aware of a difference I perceive between the height at which these works have
been hung and the height at which I am used to seeing works hung in museums and
galleries. (I am even noticing a slight, back-burner curiosity within me to
know what it's hanging on... wire and hook?) The center of each work feels
like it is hung at four feet from the ground. I have grown accustomed to
viewing works with the center hung five feet from the ground. For me this is
about nose height. Someone else's nose height may be four feet from the ground.
But whose? Christopher Williams? A curator from AIC? A curator from MOMA?
An AIC preparator? I am now looking at a work of art with an awareness of
the process by which someone had to measure, level, hammer, hang... How was
this height arrived at and by whom?
I don't know that these exact burning
questions of mine were necessarily intended by the artist, but the
fact that I have them results directly from my awakened awareness of the instrument and methodology inner-workings that were harnessed to form the images I see. Williams simultaneously masters and exposes this meticulous process of image-making in such a way that everything I see, I look at as part of the piece, even the billboard advertising it... a portion
of which, incidentally, lies cross-sectioned on the floor, with a clear view of the raw lumber
and hardware holding it all together.