Jeff Wall and the photography as an autonomous art form!
The Canadian artist Jeff Wall (*1946), one of its most significant representatives photographer of our time presents 50 works at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel after almost two decades. Jeff Wall's photos seamlessly blend documentary realism, cinematic composition, and poetic invention.
In his works, Jeff Wall explores the boundaries between reality and fiction, chance and construction. Since the mid-1970s, he has been exploring ways to expand the artistic possibilities of photography. Wall refers to his works as "cinematography," thus identifying in film a model of creative freedom and inventiveness that has now taken a back seat in the predominant photographic form, defined as "documentary." Many of his photographs are constructed images that not only require extensive planning and preparation but also involve collaboration with non-professional actors and a complex post-production phase. Wall creates representations that challenge the idea that photography is primarily a faithful reproduction of reality.
Jeff Wall began to focus on photography in the 1960s, during the rise of conceptual art. From the mid-1990s, Wall has several times varied his range of artistic expressions, first with large-format black-and-white photographs and, more recently, also with color prints. His works have been featured in numerous solo exhibitions worldwide, including in 2005 at Tate Modern in London, in 2007 at the MOMA in New York, in 2014 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in 2021 at the Glenstone Museum in Potomac.
At the Foundation Beyeler in Basel until 21 April 2024.