FYI ~ An Octopus and Some Beans
Monday, March 19, 2007 at 11:21PM 
An Octopus and Some Beans. Jeff Wall, 1990 approx. 6×8' each
>Dateline 12:12 AM, NYC time: Right off the top, I have to state that the Jeff Wall exhibition at MOMA must be seen if you wish to have even the slightest understanding and appreciation of Jeff Wall's photography.The large scale of the backlit photographs and their detail-laddened 'reality effect' are nearly overwhelming. To attempt to grasp the full import of these photographs from the viewing of small-scale printed reproductions is, well...like viewing a cinema epic such as Lawrence of Arabia on a small-screen bw television with crappy speakers. Sure, you'd certainly get the idea, but in a very 'small' way - a very pale imitation of the 'real' thing.
If you live on or are traveling to the East Coast, drive, walk, run, crawl if you must, to NYC and MOMA to see this exhibition. It is monumental and important. Much of what the Art Worldists say about it is true - "“Jeff Wall's vivid, lambent photographs hover between the observed and the imagined, between the commonplace and the surreal.-Newsday, or, "...Like a commercial light box, a Wall photograph grabs you with its glowing presence, but then, unlike an advertisement, it holds your gaze with the richness of its detail and the harmony of its arrangement. You could study it with the attention you devoted to a Flemish altarpiece in a church, and you could surrender yourself to its spell as if you were in a movie theater.”—The New York Times Magazine
It should also be noted that much of what the Art Worldists (and Wall, himself) have to say about it is arcane, obtuse, convolted self-referential crap. That's ok. Ignore it and go about the business of getting lost "in fully equipped all-terrain visual vehicles, intent on being intensely pleasurable while making a point or two about society, art, history, visual perception, the human animal or all of the above.”—The New York Times
See the MOMA online exhibition excerpt HERE.
PS; The exhibition will also be appearing at the Art Insitute of Chicago and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art later in the year.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Kent Wiley wrote: "...It's about time someone, in all this brou ha ha about Wall, said the obvious: ignore the words and look at the pictures. How many phenomenal artists are there through the ages who were absolute p--cks, but we venerate the art they made nonetheless? J.W. may be another one."
Reader Comments (2)
Well, for the time being I have to satisfy myself with a “black and white tv with crappy speakers”. Stil, even on my laptopscreen I can sense the diabolic game Jeff Wall is playing with our assumption of visual reality. He is making visual fiction out of visual facts, and visual facts out of visual fiction. There's also a lot of alienation in his pictures, an echo of the painter Edward Hopper.
What's puzzling me most is that his photo's look so real at one side. At the other hand I'm thinking that it isn't the real world I' m watching.
I think Wall is a magican with light and the things his light is shining on. (And I can easily forgive him for talking so much arty crab, he apperently needs it)
Mark,
I hope to make it to NYC before the show leaves MoMA, as I've been trying to see Wall for a couple of years, and have only seen a couple of the pieces at MoMA that were on permanent display. It's about time someone, in all this brou ha ha about Wall, said the obvious: ignore the words and look at the pictures. How many phenomenal artists are there through the ages who were absolute p--cks, but we venerate the art they made nonetheless? J.W. may be another one.