"The creamy walls [of Jeff and Jeannette Wall's house] are largely devoid of art, both to afford Wall a bit of mental space ('Too many artworks are hectic in a house,' he says) and because they are still deciding what might go where. (Even his books are kept hidden inside cabinets, not on open shelving, since Wall finds 'all the spines endlessly distracting—you keep reading the titles and then you keep thinking about that book.')"
—from a nice article about photographer/artist
Jeff Wall in, well, what else? The Wall Street Journal
Mike
(Thanks to Zack S)
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Albert Macfarlane: "In view of TOP's recent discussion (28 Aug.) on Benedict Evans' estimate that 2–3 trillion still images will be shared this year, I find it instructive that Jeff Wall is quoted in this article as saying that he only takes 3–4 images per year. Would that the rest of us had this self-control."
Globules: "I was reminded of the old debate about limited editions and the infinite reproducibility of images when I read this: 'I feel like the actual artistic part of photography is concluded when a negative is made into a positive—a print,' he says. 'The only reason to make a second print is a social reason like reproduction or publication. I have no artistic need to make more than one.'"
Thanks for posting this, I never would have seen this story otherwise. What an excellent profile of an amazing artist.
The one line from the story that made me laugh out loud was this:
"His father gave him his first camera, a Nikon F, the era’s equivalent of a point-and-shoot...."
Posted by: Ken Bennett | Friday, 11 September 2015 at 12:03 PM
I could care less.
Posted by: Dennis | Friday, 11 September 2015 at 01:40 PM
I had never heard of Wall before this post. I looked at the WSJ article, and at the included images. Evidently, he is making a good living from this work. The more power to him, but i'm afraid I'm not highly impressed by the work. Maybe i'm a GOM (grumpy old man), but without the titles, they are forgettable. With the titles, they are more understandable, but for me, not much more interesting. I guess, as he says in the article, his photography isn't for the public.
Posted by: Richard Newman | Friday, 11 September 2015 at 08:53 PM
Great article. Just avoid the comments section at the end...
I recently started reading Michael Fried's Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before. Excellent book that digs into Wall's work and the influences on him.
And have I just commented on three of your posts in a row?
Posted by: David Boyce | Saturday, 12 September 2015 at 09:51 AM
Gee, in the interests of "balance", you absolutely need a comment along the lines of Jeff Walls: an absolutely worthless poseur.
Posted by: Dennis | Saturday, 12 September 2015 at 11:11 AM
Wall is a hybrid photographer/painter, using some of the ideas of painting to make photos. Fine with me. Gregory Crewdson does something similar, although Wall is more of an intellectual and Crewdson more of a sensualist. The really difficult question in both cases (since their scenes are synthetic) is, 'Why should I care about this?'
Posted by: John Camp | Saturday, 12 September 2015 at 06:38 PM
I'm going to have to figure out how to change how my name shows up now. Not that I don't sympathize with the other Dennis' take on Jeff Wall a little. But I'll freely admit that there's just a whole little piece of society that finds something to appreciate in art that I just don't get at all.
Staged photographs are a challenge for me, right off the bat, because they're nothing I have any interest in shooting. But I certainly like plenty of stuff I don't shoot. I like Julie Blackmon's family scenes, for instance (and could fully understand it if someone doesn't like her stuff). And I can enjoy looking at (some of) the works of photographer artists, like Stephen Shore and Eggleston. So Jeff Wall's stuff does nothing for me (at least not in a small web image on my laptop) ... that says more about me than it does about his work.
One other note - I give artists with that kind of reputation credit for talking about their work. I recently heard about John Luther Adams because he was at a local performance of "Inuksuit" to benefit a local charity. The articles I read talked about him being a grammy winning composer and the whole thing seemed impressive. Someone I know attended the show and said the music was "magical" with sounds coming from all over, though they got a little bored halfway through. I looked into it a little more and watched a couple videos including one in which the composer talked a lot about the work. And the more he talked, the more the whole thing seemed phony. I think that with any art that's not very accessible and depends on context to be appreciated, the artist walks a fine line in talking about the work.
Posted by: Dennis | Monday, 14 September 2015 at 10:28 AM