Farewell to Adrian Williams and Michael Frommer

FRättenfurt ⋅ Does Felix Semmelroth already know this? That his idea, charming as utterly ridiculous, obviously wouldn’t work after all? Perhaps the head of culture in Frankfurt at the time was not so serious anyway when he recommended that Adrian Williams apply for the position of Queen of the Sachsenhausen Fountain. Or as the princess of the Frankfurt Carnival. By experience! In no way did he mean the 1822 Art Prize he had given to the American artist that day eleven years earlier at the Kaisersaal of the Römer. But her youthful commitment as the Queen of Roses in Portland, Oregon.

It is an experience that, as Williams now sums it up, some 25 years later — after studying with Hans Haacke in New York and after graduating from the Städelschule — has taught her one thing above all: “How much we as a society value imagination.” The artist, born in 1979, saw grown men cry when she officially made them Knights of the Order of the Roses, which is out of date. Essentially, Williams is centered around this in her very different work, which is created from text, sound, image, and sound and takes shape in videos, audio plays, short stories, image-textual works, and performances: Storytelling. And what are they doing to us.