Thursday, July 30, 2009

Jeff & the Wall(s) in our heads

It's like with (some) paintings. How often did you hear someone - or yourself :) saying something like this: “Sure, my two-year-old could do better than that.”? *

End of the beforegoing.

Apart from being ... well ... large-sized, Jeff Wall's photographs - are interesting.
Let's take for example


On first sight it looks easily done, like a snapshot, but ...


What I like about Jeff Wall: He does not wish to transport a mission, he does not even intend to tell a story (at least he says so); he leaves all to the viewer / contemplator.
It is as if a reader writes the story, each reader his own.

Huh, however: two or more years preparation for one photograph - that's a bit ...

... but who am I to complete my thought(s)?

Am I not a bit ..., myself?


Aren't we all?


Or, at least, most of us?

What do you think?



* With pleasure I do once again commend to read A Doubtful Egg's post about Them Bleedin' Artists ...
Take your time, contemplate, reflect and ... leave him your opinion.

** There is quite a lot to discover in Tate's Gallery and Moma.
Enjoy.

4 comments:

  1. I looked at the Tate site and there was quite a range. Some are superb. I love the one based on Invisible Man (one of my favourite novels) but a lot of them are nothing special.

    The insomnia photo is good though!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for introducing me to Jeff Walls, Sean. Like Jams I have mixed feelings about his photographs. Some I find ordinary or overbaked; others are very interesting, and impossible to avoid gazing at (and into, and around) for a while.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jams, Stan,
    glad I am not the only one feeling a bit mixed and puzzled, mostly about this:
    When not intending to transport a mission, why would one sacrifice two or more years of one's life for but one photograph?
    L'art pour l'art?
    Anyway, an interesting personality, and not unappealing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You're right, Sean. There's a lot to discover in those two galleries (Tate/Moma). Those scenes are not just photos. They are collages of two or three different dramas in one frame. I'm glad that Jeff Wall explains what it's all about, or I would miss most of it. It's great to tour an exhibition on a screen where you can enlarge and zoom in each area at leisure. I could never see an artwork that well in a real gallery, even if it was huge.

    Most of the photos are complicated and crowded. The "dead soldiers' picture" is horrifying, with a ghastly touch of humour. Not something I would put on my wall. It reminded me of "La Danse Macabre de Saint-Saëns."

    Interesting artist. Quite different. Ingenuous technique. No pretty sceneries. But the guy has no hidden agenda. He's not preaching, or analysing. He's just, very honestly, showing us some sort of a gray world, with not many happy people in it, or things of beauty. Parts of his world are even a bit frightening. I haven't seen it all in details yet. I can take it little by little, not all at once. It's OK, but a bit depressing.

    Well...Edvard Munch didn't cheer me up either. Yet, I visited him...

    What's next, Sean? Emerson said, "Earth laughs in flowers."

    ReplyDelete