3 White (DG's Mr. Postman) Fourth Race, Phoenix Greyhound Park, Phoenix, Arizona, August 22, 1994

Christopher Williams

1994 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Like his professor at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Michael Asher, Williams makes subtle interventions into the existing order of things, revealing the hidden machinery of power behind that which is seemingly transparent and neutral. The Kafkaesque comment seen here was included in Williams's 1997 project For Example: The World Is Beautiful; the title refers to the German photographer Albert Renger-Patzsch's 1928 volume Die Welt Ist Schön-a classic of modernism in which nature and technology are submitted to the cool, distancing eye of the camera lens. Williams intended this entry as a gloss on the wildly popular "sports" picture featured in magazines of the 1920s such as Der Querschnitt and made possible by then-new high-speed instruments such as the Leica.

Artist

Christopher Williams

Date

1994

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Charina Foundation Inc. and Jennifer and Joseph Duke Gifts, 2003