Chris Williams – “The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken By Storm”

The Kingdom of Heaven Must Be Taken By Storm: Independent Music in Photographs, 1990 – 2025 was a pop-up exhibition held in May 2026 at Atelier 104a in Stuttgart, Germany. This photozine was produced in conjunction with the exhibition and includes a selection of images that were displayed in the show.

Kingdom is a personal treasury of never-before-published photographs captured over 35 years as a witness to independent and experimental music. Beginning in the vibrant East Coast US indie and post-hardcore scenes of the early 1990s it spans time and space to the present-day European underground. Packed with moments of focused intensity rendered in atmospheric black and white, the collection is a tribute to artists and locations that have helped push the boundaries of creative music and serve as focal points for dynamic communities.

Artists documented in this edition include: Rodan, Escape-ism, The Jackson Pollock, Territorial Gobbing, Lubomyr Melnyk, The Jesus Lizard, Christoph Ogiermann, Merope, Graham Lambkin, Elvin Brandhi, Egg Idiot, Eve Stanton, Alasdair Roberts, GX Jupitter-Larsen, Goat (JP), The Nation of Ulysses, Chris Corsano, Lemongrab, Thomas Brinkmann, Jan Jelinek, The Shadow Ring, Red Brut, Eli Keszler, Cosey Mueller, Mission of Burma, MSHR, Marginal Consort, Petr Válek, Altar of Flies, Cupid Car Club, Helm, The Ex, The Ångströmers, Sholto Dobie, Guided By Voices, and Hoover.

Publishing details

37 black & white images on 52 pages, 14 x 20 cm, saddle stitch binding. Printed by Muellerprints, Stuttgart. Limited edition of 100 copies, printed and hand-numbered in 2026..

Sample images

Ordering info

Copies are 20 Euros, plus shipping. To order, please contact Smooth Space.

About the Artist

Chris Williams (cwllms.net) is a photographer, musician / sound artist, and writer / editor based in Stuttgart, Germany.