Elaborate Photographic Compositions

Since the late 1970s, the Canadian artist Jeff Wall has contributed significantly to establishing photography as an autonomous medium, and is regarded as one of the key vanguards of “staged photography”. Referring to his approach as “near documentary”, his images resemble documentary photographs in style and manner, but instead are meticulously composed, multilayered compositions. Synthesizing photography with elements from other art forms such as painting, cinema, and literature—in a complex mode that he calls “cinematography”—his deeply intellectual work stages fictional realities, memories and past experiences in an elaborate process.

Featuring more than fifty works, this catalogue accompanying the large-scale exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler juxtaposes Wall’s iconic backlit color transparencies with his more recent black and white photographs and color C-prints, revealing a variety of references in content and form.

Text by: Ralph Ubl