Jeff Wall in conversation

This conversation coincided with the launch of a new book on Wall's 'Picture for Women' by David Campany, published by Afterall. The talk was held at the new Central St. Martins College of Art and Design campus in Kings Cross, a magnificent conversion of what looks like an old textile mill. Wall's equally magnificent work is well known for its groundbreaking effect on art photography and its relationship to the museum. It takes on 19th Century painting's pictorialism in the form of a tableau within the single large format photograph. Walls work represents a turning point for museums adopting photography into the canon of high-art. Pictorialism and photography are often discussed together in the context of early attempts at making photographs look like impressionist paintings, but this pictorialism is concerned with the depiction of a scene, creating an extended narrative or narratives which, in Wall's case are subject to some considerable interpretation.

'Picture for Women', Jeff Wall, 1979.

David Campany's book focuses on the single work that is 'Picture for Women', as the book series is called the 'one work' series. However, in the talk Campany displayed slides and image detail from a range of Wall's works. The carefully selected questions coaxed out from Wall a great deal of information on his thoughts, ideas and processes. Wall definitely comes across as a photographer, I say this because in a lot of conceptual heavy work, there is separation between the act of taking a photograph and the thinking and building processes behind it, such that photographer becomes photographic artist. Wall maintains that his process is simply extended over a long period and that he still makes all the decisions and performs all the work that any photographer might do. He has to select the content, compose, frame, expose, process and print, albeit stretched over a longer period. To reinforce this he stated how Cartier-Bresson's 'decisive moment' is still valid in his process. 

'Mimic', Jeff Wall, 1982

Another thing of note was Wall's attitude to art. He said how it was not important for him to consider an art that satisfied only himself (his ego) or one that was created solely for the viewer. He is only interested in his critical position to art itself, it was only this that allowed him create  what he does - his feelings on "what art should be..". In Wall's work we see his distinct interest in various aspects of contemporary life, moments he discovers and then chooses to transform into images. At the same time, he is creating a fiction with realist medium and yet he claims that as the event has actually happened it is not fiction, implying that there is always something real about a photograph regardless of it being staged. It seems to me that photography is the perfect medium in which Wall can deploy his ideas as it inherently has the paradoxes and ambiguities that he believes should be questioned in art (or photographic art) itself. Its also interesting that how in the 40 years or so his work has been produced it has not changed much in terms of style, process and arguably content, although each of his works are fairly autonomous and have a life of their own. Incredible stuff.

'A woman with a covered tray', Jeff Wall, 2003

'Picture for Woman' by David Campany is published by Afterall Books, 2011. Jeff Wall is currently on show at the White Cube Gallery in Masons Yard, London from November 23rd 2011 to 7th January 2012.