Minori Chugenji
HUN 195.1386
Pro. Hugo Fernandez
May 10, 2007
Review: 4
"Jeff Wall" at The Museum of Modern Art
Jeff Wall, the exhibition has been taken a place at The Museum
of Modern Art which is located at 11 West 53 Street, between Fifth
and Sixth avenues in New York. They open 10:30 am through 5:30
pm except Friday and Tuesday. The museum is closed on Tuesday,
and it is opened till 8:00 pm on Friday with free admission.
This show is presented by Jeff Wall (Canadian, b. 1946) who is
widely recognized as one of the most adventurous and inventive
artists of his generation. This retrospective surveys his career from
the late 1970s to the present through some forty works.
The exhibition features his major light box photographs, and trace
the evolution of his principal themes and pictorial strategies. The
exhibition is designed not as same as the other photo exhibition
which presented with paper-based photographs, but all works are
with transparencies which are lit behind each photograph.
Jeff did not put any captions which Lorna Simpson did for each
work. The whole exhibition does not include a certain theme, but
each work has a big project, and it is reflected by a interest which Jeff
had at the moment.
I would like to talk about a couple of his works ; the one called,
The Destroyed Room 1978, which was significantly outstanding at the
beginning of the show, and the other one called, A view from an
apartment 2004-2005, which exposed sharply with beauty of color
photography.
The Destroyed Room 1978
Transparency in lightbox 1590x2340 mm
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Purchased 1988
Cinematographic photograph Jeff Wall
This photograph called, The Destroyed Room, 1978 is one of the first
successful attempts to challenge the norms of photography through
the use of transparencies mounted in light boxes.
The Death of Sardanapalus 1827
by Eugene Delacroix
Jeff has said, "My first pictures like The Destroyed Room comes
out from a re-encounter with nineteenth-century art." He is really
inspired by The Death of sardanapalus 1827 by Eugene Delacroix,
which depicts the Assyrian monarch on his deathbed, commanding
the destruction of his possessions and slaughter of his concubines in
a last act of defiance against invading armies. He composed his
picture like the Delacroix's drawing, but left out the people. There are
only a roughly fabricated stage-set. "Though the door you can see
that it's only a set held up by supports, that this is not real space, noone's house" he has commented. However, this is clearly a woman's
bed-room, the cause of violence is unexplained, leaving the viewer to
imagine the series of events.
A view from an apartment 2004–2005
Transparency in lightbox 1670 x 2440 mm
Collection of the artist. Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
Cinematographic photograph
© Jeff Wall
“A View From an Apartment” (2004-5) blends two scenes, those of
the domestic clutter in the foreground and the urban landscape
beyond. This is his most recent work. This photograph was taken
between May 2004 and March 2005 in an apartment specially rented
on purpose. He said that he wanted to make a picture of an interior
that included a view something he had not done before. He asked a
woman who owns this room if she wanted to be a single or attached
to a partner. She said single, so that was that. She furnished the
room as if it were hers over a period of three or four months. As he
attempted to do, this photograph is totally different from other interior
photos, such as volunteer 1996, insomnia 1994, A ventriloquist at a
birthday party in October 1947. Those are cinematic photos which
related Literature and Philosophy.
All over I like this show a lot. Although I did not know him before
seeing this show at Moma. The way I like the most of his works is
everything related to human issue which a lot of people have to face
in everyday-life. I liked the first image, "The Destroyed room" 1978, a
lot. I do not know why. By comparing those two works, Wall's and
Delacroix's is quite interesting, and let me imagine the meaning of the
work, that Wall attempt to do. He always makes viewer to imagine
his works. He does not think making viewers in control at the point of
understanding works, but he lets viewers to imagine by seeing his
photos. So He gave us to have time to enjoy art by imaging on our
own.