Jeff Wall

by De Duve, Thierry; Wall, Jeff; Pelenc, Arielle; Groys, Boris

• ISBN13: 9780714833491
• ISBN10: 0714833495
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-07-03
• Publisher: Phaidon Press

Summary

Jeff Wall is foremost among the artists who since the late 1960s have brought photography to the forefront of contemporary art. This revised and expanded edition of the definitive monograph on the Canadian artist, first published in 1996, includes a new fully illustrated essay on Wall's recent work by the French historian of art and photography Jean-Fran+ois Chevrier, in addition to the artist's recent writings. Describing himself as 'a painter of modern life', Wall produces huge transparencies mounted onto light boxes which diffuse a brilliant glow through his photographs of contemporary urban scenes and 'constructed' social situations. These images employ the latest technology to create tableaux which are evocative of subjects ranging from Hollywood cinema to nineteenth-century history painting. When installed they evoke both the seduction of the cinema screen and the physical presence of minimalist sculptures. Wall engages at a sophisticated level with theories of representation both as an artist and as a theoretical writer on contemporary art and culture. Major surveys of his work have been presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1995); the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris (1995); the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1996), and the Mus+e d'Art Contemporain, Montreal (1999).

Table of Contents

Interview	p. 6
The Mainstream and the Crooked Path	p. 24
Life without Shadows	p. 56
Pensees, 1658 (extract)	p. 72
Troubles of a Householder, 1919	p. 72
Gestus, 1984	p. 76
Unity and Fragmentation in Manet, 1984	p. 78
Photography and Liquid Intelligence, 1989	p. 90
An Outline for a Context for Stephan Balkenhol's Work, 1988	p. 94
A Guide to the Children's Pavilion (a collaborative project with Dan Graham, extract), 1989	p. 102
The Interiorized Academy, 1990	p. 104
Representation, Suspicions and Critical Transparency, 1990	p. 112
Restoration, 1994	p. 126
About Making Landscapes, 1995	p. 140
Chronology	p. 148
Bibliography	p. 160
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.