Galerie Greta Meert is pleased to present Jeff Wall’s first
exhibition at the gallery since 1991. This exhibition, which
unfolds on all three f loors of the gallery comprises both new and
earlier photographs spanning the Canadian artist’s career from
the 1980s to the present.
From documentary and ‘near documentary’ photographs to
the ambitious productions of his cinematographic pictures,
Jeff Wall’s repertoire allows him to explore the in-betweens of
picture-making granted by a prolonged observation of everyday
life. Through his sustained engagement with the pictorial form of
the tableau—from transparencies in lightboxes to silver gelatin
prints—the artist continues to expand the notion of photography
as art by simultaneously addressing its specificities and its
complex kinship to other forms of art and means of depiction. As
written by Aaron Peck, for Wall “photography becomes a way,
through the legacy of the avant-garde, to further the project
of the depictive arts, which, by an accident of their nature,
document the spirit and details of the time in which a particular
artwork is composed.”
In planning this exhibition, Wall considered the inevitable
repetitions that occur when working in pictorial form. By
acknowledging the return of certain themes throughout his work,
he paradoxically reinforces the singularity of the tableau. For
instance, in Monologue (2013), Listener (2015), and in his more
recent Event (2020), where two men at a formal gathering are
engaged in a confrontation, the artist captures the act of talking—
an element that evades photography and therefore shows a limit.
In Wall’s lexicon, these scenes constitute occurrences, a wide
category of pictures that contrast with non-occurrences as
exemplified by the many landscapes presented in this exhibition,
including Rock surface 1 & 2 (2007), and Hillside near Ragusa
(2007).
While such groupings could again be made with pictures like
Mask maker (2015), Man in a mirror (2019) and Sunseeker (2021),
which all depict figures in various states of absorption, some more
subtle yet perceptible echoes can also be found across radically
different pictures. The geographic and economic demarcation in
Property line (2015) unexpectedly bears a relation to the tangible
line of the cubicle in Pawnshop (2009), where a man is seen about
to dispose of his prized possession—a blue electric guitar.
Jeff Wall was born in 1946 in Vancouver (Canada) where he lives
and works. He has exhibited widely, including solo exhibitions
at Glenstone, Maryland (2021); Economou Collection, Athens
(2019); Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany, touring to Mudam
Luxembourg (2018); P rez Art Museum, Miami (2015); Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam, touring to Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria and
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2014–
15); Art Gallery of Western Australia, touring to National Gallery
of Victoria, Melbourne and Museum of Contemporary Art
Australia, Sydney (2012–13); Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich,
Germany (2013); Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago
de Compostela, Spain (2011); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2008);
The Museum of Modern Art, New York touring to The Art
Institute of Chicago and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
(2007); and Tate Modern, London touring to Schaulager, Basel,
Switzerland (2005). Group exhibitions include 5th Shanghai
Biennale (2004); Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002); 12th
Biennale of Sydney (2000); 24th Bienal de S o Paulo (1998); and
Documenta 10, Kassel, Germany (1997).