Weimar Lux CDS, VEB Feingerätewerk Weimar, Preis 86,50 Mark GDR, Filmempfindlichkeitsbereich 9 bis 45 DIN und 6 bis 25000 ASA, Blendenskala 0,5 bis 45, Zeitskala 1/4000 Sekunde bis 8 Stunden, ca. 1980, Models: Ellena Borho and Cristoph Boland, November 12th, 2010

This work forms part of an ongoing project called For Example: Dix-huit Leçons sur la société industrielle (Eighteen Lessons on Industrial Society), the title of which is taken from a 1962 book by the French sociologist Raymond Aron. Aron charged Socialist regimes with creating stagnant economic systems, and praised the idealization of progress and change in Western capitalism. Christopher Williams, courting change and stasis in equal measure, has been exhibiting different groups of photographs under this title for six years. In this latest presentation, Williams focused on emblems of the divided postwar German economy. The dress in question evokes East German fashions of the 1960s, as if this were a period fashion shoot; the light meter was made by Weimar Lux, an East German company located in the hometown of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the Bauhaus. Old and new world orders collide in a beautifully crafted work that is sensual yet severe in its impact. "To focus is to assert a preference for one surface over another," wrote the artist. "To choose between the light meter or the green dress. How to represent them? Let's say that both, on that afternoon, trembled slightly."