A look at: Jeff Wall

The artist Jeff Wall: Brief positioning

Jeff Wall is currently ranked 101st in the world by artist, according to a computer-generated ranking of all exhibitions worldwide; at least 600,000 exhibitions are already included in the evaluation.

Around 2007, at the height of his creativity and fame, he was ranked about 50 places higher in this world ranking of art, but even ranking 100-x certainly justifies the assumption that art lovers either already know the artist Jeff Wall and his work or would like to get to know him.

His photographic art has made him one of the most renowned contemporary photographers, with several of his images revered as “icons of contemporary photography .” This photographic art is also categorized as conceptual photographic art, an art movement with which Jeff Wall experimented in his early years.

Jeff Wall also became known through art historical publications , e.g. about Dan Graham, Rodney Graham, Roy Arden, Ken Lum, Stephan Balkenhol, On Kawara and other contemporary artists.

The main themes of Jeff Wall's artistic work

Jeff Wall creates images like films – each image tells a story, each image is meticulously composed down to the smallest detail in the background. These photographs cannot be viewed just once; with each newly discovered detail, the story the photograph aims to convey can also change.

As soon as it was available, Wall used digital editing programs; he began piecing together images from many individual details.

Jeff Wall discovered the lightbox as a presentation format early on and considered it the best way to present his images. He described the lightbox as a delivery system (in the sense of a practical device for transporting the content of his photographic art).

Several art historians drew parallels to neon signs , as used to present large-format advertising posters. Others likened the presentation method to the appearance of a film image on a cinema screen; there is general agreement that the lightbox helps to present photography dramatically.

Wall's photography is seen as having a connection to cinema for another reason: his photographs are rarely static, but almost always moving, or in the middle of movement, of individual figures or the entire scene.

Where movement is absent, it appears as if it has just been stopped – and thus still like part of a film, a camera movement or fade-in just completed. In the image restoration, this could have been a magnificent 360° camera movement by Ballhaus.

" staged photography" appears realistic and only reveals itself upon very close inspection as a constructed pseudo-reality, a concern of Wall's, but not the only one.

Wall, however, frequently makes references and thus places the images in a historical context; in “The Destroyed Room,” for example, he refers to Eugène Delacroix’s “The Death of Sardanapalus” from 1828, which can now be seen in the Louvre.

Wall reinterprets Delacroix's chaotically moving history painting in a contemporary way, translating it into the medium of photography and transforming it into a still life; Delacroix's contradiction between unmoving comfort and archaic violence is transformed into a clash of violence and luxury that is typical of Wall's present.

Jeff Wall is a very meticulous artist who takes his time with his carefully staged photographs. In his nearly four-decade-long career, he has published only 166 photographic works.

His photographic artworks are prepared, shot, and edited until the result surpasses reality. For the photograph “Man waiting ,” 2007, 20 men in rain gear appeared daily for two weeks and stood for hours at the corner with a black umbrella until the photograph of the waiting man truly looked like a waiting man to Jeff Wall.

The art of Jeff Wall: Examples

• “The Destroyed Room”, 1978
• “Milk”, 1984
• “The Storyteller”, 1986
• “A Ventriloquist at a Birthday Party in October 1947” , 1990, Open image
• “The Pine on the Corner” , 1990, Open image
• “A Sudden Gust Of Wind (after Hokusai)” , 1993, open image , a completely composed image, hat, man, tree and foliage were seamlessly combined from individual shots.
• “Restoration”, 1993

Jeff Wall artwork on Pinterest

Jeff Wall's work in the public sphere: exhibitions, art in public spaces and in public collections

Jeff Wall can currently (November 2015) look back on 72 solo exhibitions and 367 group exhibitions , 100 of them in Germany, 90 in the USA, 44 in France, 35 in Spain, 31 in Canada and the rest scattered around the world, Australia, England, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, Ukraine and others.

Jeff Wall has exhibited several times at documenta in Kassel: documenta 7 in 1982, documenta 8 in 1987, documenta 10 in 1997 and also documenta 11 in 2002.

The largest exhibition of his works took place in 2005, running throughout the summer at the Schaulager Basel, Switzerland. Large parts of this exhibition traveled to London's Tate Modern in October 2005 and remained there until January 2006.

In the spring of 2007, the entire top floor of the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York was dedicated to his exhibition. He seems to have passed the peak of his popularity with this exhibition, his computer-calculated ranking by exhibition appearances rising from 55th to his current 101st place.

Photographs by Jeff Wall can be seen in the public collections of the following 13 countries:

• Australia , Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
• Belgium , Museum for Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerp
• Germany , Museum Ludwig Cologne, K20 + K21 Düsseldorf, Museum of Modern Art Frankfurt/Main, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Museum Kurhaus Kleve, Goetz Collection + Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus + Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
• Italy , Museo D'Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina Napoli, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Turin, Fondazione Querini Stampalia ONLUS Venice
• Finland , Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki
• France , FRAC Aquitaine Bordeaux, FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais Dunkerque, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne Reims, Musee de Grenoble, Musee municipal d'art La Roche-sur-Yon, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain Paris, Musée Départemental d'Art Contemporain de Rochechouart, Institut d'art contemporain Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes Villeurbanne
• Canada , McIntosh Gallery London, ON, Musée d´art contemporain de Montréal, QC, Art Gallery of Ontario Toronto, ON, Vancouver Art Gallery, BC
• Netherlands , Kröller-Müller Museum Otterlo, De Pont museum of contemporary art Tilburg
• Austria , Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation (MUMOK) Vienna
• Portugal , Ellipse Foundation, Alcoitão
• Switzerland , Kunstmuseum Basel and Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Kunsthaus Zürich
• Spain , Cal Cego – Colleccion de Arte Contemporaneo + Museu d´Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) Barcelona, ​​Centro de Artes Visuales Helga de Alvear Cáceres, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Málaga
• USA , The Baltimore Museum of Art, MD, The Art Institute of Chicago + Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL, The Margulies Collection Miami, FL, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA

How did Jeff Wall get into art?

In the mid-1960s, he studied art history at the University of British Columbia while simultaneously continuing to create art, inspired by the emerging Conceptual Art movement and its anti-capitalist credo: decoupling art from aesthetics and market value. This culminated in Landscape Manual (1969–70) , a black-and-white booklet of snapshots and texts documenting a car journey Wall took through the bleak suburbs of Vancouver. Despite this groundbreaking work, Wall remained dissatisfied with the conceptual direction and took a break from artistic production from 1971 to 1977.

Meanwhile, he began a doctorate in art history in London, where he read avidly: philosophy, critical theory, and the history of painting, sculpture, and photography. He also engaged with European art cinema, particularly the narrative films of directors such as Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. During his three-year research stay at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, he collaborated with the Manet expert T.J. Clark.

After returning to Vancouver in 1973, Wall set about making a film with collaborators Ian Wallace and Rodney Graham. Although the project was never completed, this foray into storytelling with moving images inspired his “cinematographic photograph” —a concept central to his later practice, in which each photograph is carefully staged and rehearsed like a scene from a film.

It wasn't until 1977 that Jeff Wall returned to art, now in his own unique form of photography, in which he references artists such as Diego Velázquez, Hokusai and Édouard Manet , or writers such as Franz Kafka, Yukio Mishima and Ralph Ellison.

When Wall began producing his large-format, backlit transparencies in the autumn of 1977, he sought to distinguish his practice from the documentary and street photography that had largely dominated the medium up to that point. For Wall, each photograph was “an isolated statement” that required the same sustained attention as a painting or a film.

Wall's later photographs move from conceptual commentary to a kind of heightened materialism . In "Milk," Wall re-enacts a moment he witnessed in real life—a process he calls "almost documentary." A visibly tense man sits hunched over on the sidewalk as milk spectacularly drips from the container in his hand.

In After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, the prologue, Wall creates an imaginary scene from Ellison’s 1952 novel with a dizzying variety of details – most striking being the dense curtain of light bulbs hanging above the protagonist’s brightly lit basement apartment.

These later works depict ordinary scenes with an intense, almost feverish clarity, emphasizing material textures and sensory details over abstract concepts. In doing so, they demonstrate the ceaseless evolution of Wall's creative vision. Wall's work is full of surprising directions and shifts, and will continue to be so (see MoMA ).

Jeff Wall today

Although Wall continues to produce large, highly stylized photographic tableaux that engage with and reflect the world, he has shifted from an interest in "near-documentation" to a purely aesthetic "intense image-making ," suggesting a greater desire to create something unique rather than establishing a theoretical or historical lineage for his images.

He describes this shift as "the need to move away from this [near-documentation] and try to make images that are more emphatically pictorial." For Wall, the process of creating the image is more interesting than capturing a moment. He explains that "photography is meant to be instantaneous ," but for him, "the plasticity of the process, in which things transform into something else, arises from the time I spend doing it."

He produces very few finished works each year, and his photo shoots often last several days, with production costs sometimes exceeding $100,000. Similarly, the price of his photographs has risen dramatically over the years, with recent gallery exhibitions and museum retrospectives only further solidifying his status in the art world.

Jeff Wall as a public figure: Prizes and awards, teaching activities, repercussions

In 1996, Jeff Wall received the International Art Prize of the Cultural Foundation of the Munich Savings Bank and in 2003 the Roswitha Haftmann Prize, a prize awarded since 2001 for “outstanding achievements in the field of visual arts”

In 2002, Wall was honored with the Hasselblad Award , which has been awarded by the Hasselblad Foundation since 1980 in recognition of significant achievement by photographers; according to insiders, it is the world's most important award in photography.

He shares this prestigious award with legends of photographic art and photographic artists who are quite likely to become such legends, e.g.: Henri Cartier-Bresson (1982 laureate), Irving Penn (1985), Sebastião Salgado (1989), Susan Meiselas (1994), William Eggleston (1998), Cindy Sherman (1999), Bernd and Hilla Becher (2004), Lee Friedlander (2005), Nan Goldin (2007), Robert Adams (2009), Paul Graham (2012), Wolfgang Tillmans (2015)

In 2006, Jeff Wall was elected to the Royal Society of Canada (Canadian Academy of Sciences), in 2007 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada (Canada's highest civilian award, motto "who desire a better country"), and in 2008 he received the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the University of British Columbia.

In 1974, Wall began his first teaching position in the field of art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art of the University of London, which he continues to this day.

From 1974 to 1975, Wall taught as an assistant professor at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design , from 1976 to 1987 he was a visiting professor at Simon Fraser University, and he also taught at the European Graduate School, a non-profit institution for interdisciplinary studies in Switzerland.

Wall's large-format photographic artworks and staged compositions are said to have significantly influenced several members of the "Düsseldorf School of Photography" , Andreas Gursky ("Wall was a great role model for me"), Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff and Candida Höfer.

Artistic legacy

Wall is considered an innovative pioneer in reimagining conceptual photography and questioning the nature of photographic “truth.” According to Sheena Wagstaff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “he worked against the grain to push the photographic genre into areas where it had been completely rejected or ignored.”

Furthermore, she claims that "he truly influenced the way people worldwide see the world through the lens." His work has influenced subsequent generations of artists, such as the Düsseldorf group, which includes photographers Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff , Candida Höfer and Andreas Gursky – Gursky said Wall was "a great role model for me" .

Wall's work has opened up the possibility for photography to break out of its traditional boundaries, both in the field of visual art and in its role in depicting real life as it unfolds.

Wall is also a highly respected art theorist and teacher who writes and lectures on contemporary art and artists. His essay "Marks of Indifference: Aspects of Photography in, or as, Conceptual Art" (1995) is still considered one of the most important essays on the development of conceptual art and the processes involved in its production and reception, due to its incisive yet clear discussion of theories. Much of his writing can be found in his book * Jeff Wall: Selected Essays and Interviews*.

His influence extends beyond the world of visual arts. For example, during her performance at the 2015 Grammy Awards, singer Sia reproduced the lightbulb and apartment setting from Wall's After Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," the prologue, and cited Wall's ability to create a sense of magical realism as inspiration for her own artistic work.

In the words of curator Peter Galassi :

"If Jeff's paintings are successful, then they are successful in a way that no one else can – it is a kind of art that no one else practices."

The private Jeff Wall

Jeff Wall was born on September 29, 1946 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and now lives in South Florida, USA.

Wall met his wife Jeannette, an Englishwoman, while studying in Vancouver, and they had two sons in the 1960s.

Current access to Jeff Wall

Photographic artworks by Jeff Wall were most recently featured in the following exhibitions:

A major special exhibition at the new Kunsthalle Mannheim in 2018 was dedicated to the international photographic artist Jeff Wall. The exhibition “The Imaginary Museum: Works from the Centre Pompidou, the Tate, and the MMK” , at the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main (MMK 2 in the TaunusTurm).

The Johnen Gallery Berlin presented 20 pictures by Jeff Wall on its website johnengalerie.de, which could also be viewed enlarged in a slideshow.

The Fondation Beyeler major solo exhibition to the Canadian artist at the beginning of 2024. This will be the artist's first exhibition in Switzerland in two decades. More information at Fondation Beyeler: Jeff Wall (January 28 – April 21, 2024 )

Unfortunately, there are currently no exhibitions about Jeff Wall taking place in Germany.

Recommended reading on Jeff Wall

• Scenarios in the pictorial space of reality. Essays and interviews. FUNDUS Vol. 142: Essays and Interviews. Edited by Gregor Stemmrich ( Link to the book* )
• Jeff Wall. Specific Pictures, by Stefan Gronert, September 20, 2016 ( Link to the book* )
• Jeff Wall. Transit (Exhibition catalog, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 20 June–19 September 2010) ( Link to the book* )
• Jeff Wall. Catalogue Raisonné 1978–2004, ed. by Theodora Vischer and Heidi Naef ( Link to the book* )
• Jeff Wall, exhibition catalog, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 1995Lee Robbins, 'Lightbox, Camera, Action!', Artnews, vol.94, no.9, Nov. 1995, pp.220-3

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