urban landscape - what I really think about Jeff Wall, or, more accurately, what I really think about his work
Friday, March 2, 2007 at 08:39AM 
The Genesse river, Rochester, NY • click on photo to embiggen it - It's my photo, not Julian Frank'sI'm going to ask you to put your thinking cap on for this one - please read and comment.
The recent Jeff Wall Affair stirred up the photography waters quite a bit, although I am certain that, for some, it elicited little more than a yawn. From the yawn POV, it appears that it is just more of the same-o,same-o, pointy-headed intellectual, effete art/academic establishment, dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin jetson and flotsam.
To a certain extent, I agree.
Others think differently - Len Bacchus wrote; 'I feel Wall will one day claim equal space in the history of art alongside Breughel, Bernini, Caravaggio, Vermeer, Valesquez, Manet, Goya, Cezanne and many other "masters." The criteria here being (other than his own artistic rigor and craft) the "wholeness" of his experience (by that fuzzy term I mean his faithfulness to "what he has seen" — or "the painter of modern life", as he borrowed from Baudelaire) and his large role in changing the course of art following the advent of modernism and the avant-garde.'
To a certain extent, I agree.
From the Yawnist perspective, the JWA is little more than Chapter MCMXCVIII (and counting) in the long standing art world's insistence - formally declared as early as the 1600s - that Art must be distanced from the contingient features of the actual world and exhibit the presence of an active intellegence, aka, the creator of the Art; the painter, the sculptor, the photographer, et al. Yeh, right. Blah, blah, blah...just show me the pictures...
Or, in other words, create it, don't just copy it.
From the Equal-Place-in-the-History-of-Art Department, like his results or not, Wall's work emphatically exhibits the presence of his active intelligence - months and months of pre/post-filmic moment work devoted to conceptualizing and then controlling/constructing every detail of the pro-fimic moment/event. This near-herculean effort in the medium of photography, what Bacchus calls 'artistic rigor and craft', is what endears Wall to academia, curators (an extension of academia), and the purveyors (ever beholden to academic/curatorial benedictions) of Art.
In other words, the man has done his homework (a degree bearing Art historian) and played to the dictates of the High Art world. Cynics in the crowd might suggest something about 'sucking up'...
Yeh, right. Blah, blah, blah...just show me the pictures...
For me, while I appreciate Wall's work and effort - start to finish, his nod to Art history, and his clarity of concept, I still want to see the pictures. And this is where I appreciate Wall's academically perverse attitude - despite the fact that Wall expresses a great admiration for Modernist/Avant-Garde theory and practice which emphasizes concept over content or the connoted over the referent, he still admits to 'liking pictures' (if you can take it, you can read Wall's thoughts about 'liking pictures' here).
Apparently, for Wall, content and form still matter.
If his concept is (simplified) constructing photographic 'realities' that address 'the indeterminate American look', then I think, to my eye and sensibility, he's doing a good job of it. I like most of what I have seen of his photography. I like the look and feel of his photographs and, dispite their constructed artifice, his photographs connote a feeling of 'the spirit of fact'.
An aside - NO, I don't think that his 'fake' photographic constructions in any way undermine the legitimacy of photography as a medium of 'truth' or the 'real', because, make no bones about it and unlike the Wizard of Oz, he wants Dorthy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.
And therein lies my question to you. Has Wall raised the bar? Is it no longer enough to be, however insightful and skilled, just a 'shooter' of the contingient features of the actual world? Is it possible in the Art world for a photographer to be 'invisible' and let the photograph 'speak' for itself?
Or, in other words, what's it all about, Alfie?
Reader Comments (5)
As a yawner, I really don't care about the words of what he is trying to accomplish. Like you and that Jerry McGuire movie, show me the pictures. I take what I will from it whether I consider it raising the bar or not. Truly, in looking at anyone's work, deciphering whether or not it fits into mainstream artworld, is really far in the back of my mind. And really, looking at his images, I am really not moved by them as much as maybe Mary Dennis' and Mark Hobson's images.
I claim no expertise about "the art world," but it appears to me that that world does indeed prefer work in which the photographer -- or other artist -- is not "invisible," but has something personal to say. If I don't like that stance, then probably I should not seek approval of the art world. I guess the problem comes if I assume that the art world defines what is art, and if my photos aren't art then they aren't anything. Actually, I don't think the art world is so monolithic as often supposed, and I think actual people looking at my photos are asking themselves not (or not only) whether they're art, but whether they like them.
By the way, I really like the Genessee river photo. It provokes both visual enjoyment and a lot of thought that starts from the dense trees and jumbled cars on opposite sides of the river, and goes from there... [comment removed by yawn filter -SD]
"Is it possible in the Art world for a photographer to be 'invisible' and let the photograph 'speak' for itself?"
I don't think it's a matter of the photographer being invisible or not, but rather it's about discourse: in the art world, it's the discourse surrounding the work that defines it as art.
"Is it possible in the Art world for a photographer to be 'invisible' and let the photograph 'speak' for itself?"
Yes. There seem to be many of them in fact. Alec Soth being just one example.
I don't see it as an either/or proposition.