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28/2/2014

Jeff Wall

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

curated by Hripsimé Visser

An extraordinary selection of work by Canadian photographer Jeff Wall (b. Vancouver, 1946), one of today’s leading international artists, opens at the Stedelijk Museum on March 1, 2014. Encompassing nearly 40 works, the exhibition surveys Wall’s oeuvre since 1996.

Jeff Wall: Tableaux, Pictures, Photographs, 1996–2013 presents recent work in color and black and white, and features the new, previously unseen diptych Summer Afternoons (2013). It is the first major photography exhibition to be presented at the Stedelijk following its reopening in 2012.

Since the 1980s, Wall has produced critically acclaimed work in the form of color transparencies backlit by fluorescent light strips and presented in lightboxes. He was one of the first artists to make photographs on a large scale. The standard lightbox was created for the primary purpose of outdoor advertising. In Wall’s work, this medium became a platform for his figurative tableaux, street scenes and interiors, landscapes and cityscapes. Wall explores themes such as the relationships between men and women and the boundary between metropolis and nature. He offers social commentary on violence and cultural miscommunication, and conjures seductive nightmarish fantasies and personal memories. These scenes provide the basis for photographic reconstructions of Wall’s experience. They derive their inherent suspense from a combination of extreme realism and sometimes elaborate artifice.

The exhibition hinges on the year 1996, which marked a turning point in Wall’s production: It was the first year that he produced black-and-white prints on paper. More immediately than the lightboxes, the black-and-white photographs suggest new relations of his work to documentary themes and aesthetics. But Wall also orchestrates the content of these images, employing tools borrowed from filmmaking. Wall sees photographs as autonomous, independent images and, strictly speaking, all his works are created using photographic means. At the same time, he analyzes and expands the visual language of photography by adding elements from painting, cinema, theater. In choosing his themes, Wall deconstructs common ideas and assumptions, including those relating to his own work. He has, for instance, also shot many “unstaged” images.

Curator Hripsimé Visser said: “Jeff Wall is first and foremost an ‘artist’s artist,’ he is well- known and much loved by other artists, as well as critics. With this exhibition, the Stedelijk hopes to create broader public awareness of Jeff Wall as one of the artists who uniquely and enduringly defined photography as a fine art medium. Wall’s work is classic, yet entirely contemporary at the same time. His themes are both commonplace and tension-filled. What at first seems straightforward and intelligible is also complex and enigmatic. Wall carefully selects his mode of display to be produced with an incredible eye for detail. The large scale of the images is a natural, integral feature of the work.” 

Publication
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Jeff Wall: Tableaux, Pictures, Photographs, 1996–2013, designed by Stutteregger and authored by Hripsimé Visser, Yilmaz Dziewior (Kunsthaus Bregenz), and Camiel van Winkel (art historian and lecturer). It is a joint publication of the Stedelijk Museum, Kunsthaus Bregenz, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Public Program The Stedelijk has developed a dynamic Public Program that includes lectures, film screenings, and live interviews. In the opening weekend, Jeff Wall will give a lecture about his work. Note for the editor: For more information and images, please contact the Press Office of the Stedelijk Museum, Annematt Ruseler, +31 (0)20 573 26 60 or pressoffice@stedelijk.nl 

Exhibition organized by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in collaboration with Kunsthaus Bregenz and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk

STEDELIJK|FORUM: JEFF WALL ARTIST TALK
As part of the Public Program in conjunction with Jeff Wall: Tableaux Pictures Photographs 1996-2013 exhibition, the Stedelijk Museum is honored to present a new stedelijk|forum afternoon with an artist talk by Jeff Wall, introduced by Hripsimé Visser (curator Photography, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam)

Image: Jeff Wall, Boxing, 2011, kleurfoto, courtesy of the artist

Press office:
Marie-José Raven or Annematt Ruseler t: + 31 (0)20 5732 656 or +31 (0)20
5732 660 e: pressoffice@stedelijk.nl

Opening 1 march

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Museumplein 10, Amsterdam
Open daily from 10 am till 6 pm,
Thursday till 10 pm.
Admission
Adults € 15
Students, Cultural Youth Pass (CJP) € 7,50
Students 18+ in groups (registered in advance) € 3,50
Children and Youth (18 years or younger) free

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