Oct 12, 2024
Online-Release
Interview
Jeff Wall in conversation
Dear Jeff Wall, you just had a retrospective at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. This November, you will be mounting another large-scale show at White Cube Bermondsey, celebrating thirty years of working with the White Cube gallery. Are those exhibitions quite different in their approach?
They are similar because many of the pictures that were in Basel will also be in London, along with a few newer pieces that I hadn't finished earlier. The exhibition will then travel to the Museum of Art and Technology in Lisbon next spring, then continuing to the Galleria d'Arte d'Italia in Torino in the fall, and finally to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto.
We are having this conversation on invitation by the DFI e.V., an artists-led initiative whose aim is to help set up a German Institute of Photography in Düsseldorf. Even though you live in Vancouver and Los Angeles, I know that you had a lot of your work produced in Düsseldorf for a long time, is that right?
In 2007 I decided to make colour photos that weren't transparencies and at that time the best alternative were the face mounted c-prints produced at Grieger in Düsseldorf. I'd seen many of them done by artists like Andreas Gursky, Thomas Demand and Thomas Struth over the years. I was uncertain about doing that because I knew that c-prints are very impermanent, but I wanted to make that change to my repertoire without any delay. By about 2013 I'd managed to find a way to make, mount and frame inkjet prints made in my studio and that's what I've done since then.
The large-scale, back-lit transparencies employ a technology that was common in advertising. You started using it in the late 1970s, and it’s often associated with your work. Why did you abandon it?
I haven't abandoned it, I've suspended it indefinitely but could return to it any time. I am still producing transparencies in my studio as part of a long-term project to make 'reserve prints' or 'backup prints' for all the backlit editions. I've been working on that for almost twenty years and expect to complete it, finally, early next year.
What problems did you see with the Grieger products?
As I said, I was not confident in the c-prints because of the longevity issue. After a few years of pretty instense research, I finally found a way to mount and present inkjet prints the way I do now. The pictures now look just as I want them to look and I believe that the finishing process insures maximum longevity. That process took a lot of time because, as you probably know from talking to some of the other people who have worked on a larger scale, it’s not that hard to make a larger photo, but it’s very hard to mount and frame one.
The technology of inkjet printing must have improved a lot then. Has the photo industry put in more effort to make life easier for photo artists in recent years?
I'm sure nobody really cares about what artists need, they only care about what the industry needs. But luckily, in some way, the photo industry is moving in a direction that is helpful to people working in color.
In what way?
I think everyone who works in color knows the struggles of finding, first of all, a viable way to print the negative, and second, a way to preserve the photographic print. This isn’t anything new; it has been an ongoing issue since the 1930s. Preserving color photographs has always been a problem, and we might now feel that this issue is being transformed with inkjet prints, which have better stability than anything previously possible.
So the allure of the transparent picture as such has not faded for you?
No. Recently, I have been astonished by the increasing improvement in the quality of the new commercial products, which are essentially translucent inkjet prints on sheets of vinyl. They used to be quite poor but in the last five years, they've have become extremely good. If I were a young artist now wanting to create backlit imagery, I would choose that technology, combined with LED lighting, of course, which is much less damaging to the print.
We already touched on the subject of making photographs last. One of your largest light boxes is called “Restoration.” At a size of 120 x 490 cm, it depicts the restoration of “The Bourbaki Panorama” in Lucerne, Switzerland, a circular panoramic painting created by Édouard Castres in 1881, measuring 112 × 10 meters.
Not all panoramas are good paintings, but this one really is. That is one of the reasons I wanted to create this work—because the Bourbaki Panorama is such a good painting, and I thought it deserved some sort of homage.
Given what you said earlier about the durability of prints, one may read “Restoration” not only as an homage but as a comment on the durability of visual art as such. Who are the women we see in the image, and what are they doing exactly?
They are identifying problem spots in the paint surface, cracks or fractures, and applying delicate bits of tissue paper with a very gentle adhesive that doesn't harm the surface. As the painting is so large, they start by marking these spots to ensure they remember where they have work to do. The women you see in the image are restorers; I worked with them since I needed their expertise and their presence in the picture seemed essential. Since no real restoration was happening at the time, we could only depict the very beginning of the process.
The Bourbaki Panorama depicts the internment of 87,000 French soldiers seeking refuge in neutral Switzerland at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. It was extensively restored just three years after your image was made, from 1996 until 2003. Your work anticipates the event.
There was already a discussion about the condition of the Bourbaki Panorama when I first saw it, so it wasn't as if I thought of it myself. The building that houses it was very beautiful in those days—a very old rotunda in the middle of the city of Lucerne. I know it has since been extensively restored to make it look much nicer but I loved it more when it was a worn-out-looking traditional building.
The restoration of photographs can be considered more tricky than the restoration of paintings. Damaged prints are thus often replaced by new ones, raising questions about authenticity. Some artists insist on destroying the damaged print once a new one has been made. Do you?
I have replaced several pictures over the years, and haven't demanded the destruction of the existing print. I don't really care if the old print is kept, it simply cannot be exhibited anymore. I don't think it matters, especially in a museum. They're going to keep it in an archive somewhere, and it's just going to stay there and maybe be studied by somebody who is interested. The new print is the one that people will see.
Damage in photographic prints typically results from chemical reactions such as light exposure, or physical degradation of the emulsion layer. Is it possible to save a photograph for as long as painting or sculpture?
We do not have a complete answer to this question. The aging process of photographs is so unpredictable. I'm not terribly worried about my black and white photos because those are very stable, and I don't think they're going to change very much. I have recently seen some that are now thirty years old, and they look like new. I'm very happy to see that.
What is the most decisive measure to take when it comes to preserving a photograph?
Not to expose them to light too much. With a small, traditional-sized photo this has been quite easy to do. One can keep them in dark storage quite easily, and bring them out for a little while each year. With the bigger pictures that artists have been making since the 1980s, it has been more difficult. People who own these pictures have tended to think of them as paintings, to sort of forget that they are photographs, and keep them in unfavourable lighting conditions for long periods. This problem is surfacing now, thirty to forty years later. That is about the lifespan of a lot of color prints.
How do you deal with this problem?
Twenty years ago, as I said, I set out to produce 'reserve prints' for all my transparencies so that any owner of a picture would have another one 'in reserve'. I sell them at the cost of production, essentially. And I store and insure the prints for them when they don't have proper storage themselves. Most of the owners have chosen to store them in my studio, where I have good conditions and where I can accommodate the large prints.
A complete backup, essentially.
Yes. I project various lifespans for those pictures, depending on how often they are being shown. I have seen pictures that were printed in the early 1980s which are still good because the people who own them did not expose them to daylight too often and stored them properly. The less you expose, the longer the lifespan will be. A color photograph could last centuries if treated properly.
And yet people will want to look at the images, especially when they are in a public collection. How can this dilemma be resolved?
I think the future of photography in terms of its longevity is all about the social relation between the people who own the photographs and the legacy of the artist. It depends on what he or she has organized for the estate and what their education, priorities, values, and abilities of those responsible for the work are. Technically, the preservation, restoration or reproduction can be very effective now. It's the human factor...
Do you think that all photographers will seek to have their work preserved professionally in that way?
It’s likely that most have at least a hope that their work will last over time and be of interest. For those people it is always going to be complicated. As I said, it will depend on who comes after them and what care there is for their work. But there are people who are serious about their work but who aren't that interested in how long it lasts, since 'nothing lasts forever'. That idea has a kind of beauty to it. The fact that the artwork will not be there forever has a sort of poignant quality that maybe even enhances its its appeal and meaning. So there's probably no one single way of looking at it.
What is your personal stance on the durabitlity of your art?
I’m interested in the longevity of my prints, just because I have learned so much from art that is hundreds of years old. A primary quality and value of the arts is to last and radiate something through time.
Photography, you said in a conversation with Martin Schwander for the catalogue of the Beyeler show, should not be excluded from the unconditional artistic freedom readily awarded to any other art form, be it ballet, theater or the novel. One would hardly disagree. But then artistic tradition and expectations of the public shape art forms over time. Do you think that there are limits to photography?
Limited in its survival or limited in terms of relevance?
Limited in the sense that photography could not reasonably be expected to do everything that painting can.
I don't think that photography needs to do what painting can. I learned a lot about art from painting, partly because I practiced it myself, but also because I've always appreciated it. I realized that some aspects of what painting has accomplished over quite a few centuries were not its exclusive property. All pictorial criteria, such as composition and similar elements, are common to all visual arts, whether it's drawing, painting, lithography, or photography. We are doing the same things, so we can learn from each other. I can think of the connections among the visual arts as a family relationship, but in no way have I ever thought that photography should do anything that painting does. It could learn from painting in order to expand its own boundaries. I think that's what happened in the 1970s and 1980s, when people began to realize that photographs didn't have to be constrained by the previously established orthodoxy, which was based on photojournalism, small prints, and other criteria that defined the traditional canon.
There is an unimaginable abundance of digital photos being created these days, but people use them mostly in a social way. Is that something that you're interested in?
It's almost impossible to avoid since it's everywhere. Its interesting how people use photos to communicate socially—for example showing the event they're at instead of writing about it. It works really well and that's probably making photography more cherished than before. I wouldn't be surprised if people feel more affection for photography now, because they’re using it themselves and weaving it into their daily lives.
Do you think that the social use of photography has an effect on the medium as an art form?
Maybe when some of the young people using it as social media get older, they’ll want to practice photography in a more expanded way, and their sensibility will be one that hasn't existed before. The next generation is always the one that surprises us.
It might make them better at taking and reading images, just as relying on writing in their day to day lives makes people more literate.
People probably are better at looking at photographs than thirty years ago, because most people didn't carry cameras around all the time. Most of the image traffic has nothing artistically interesting about it, but I assume it will eventually lead to something. I feel like the kind of pictures I do or Andreas Gursky, or some of the other people who have come out of the 1980s do have a stability that relates to older art, no matter how modern they seem to be in other respects. That may be lacking in the future. That lack could be a central problem.
Photography as a social tool is usually subjective. Looking at your work, in contrast, there seems to be a similar thing as the third-person narrator in a novel, who isn’t entirely involved but neither completely detached from the events. I sometimes feel like „I shouldn't be here witnessing this“.
I don't know that I have heard anyone say that before. Do you mean that the picture itself doesn't disclose its point of view?
Not completely. In a novel, all you learn about the events is being related to you by the narrator. He or she may seem uninvolved, but there will usually be subtle – or not so subtle – hints as to what the narrator thinks about the tale he tells. I sense the same in your large scale tableaux.
The comparison is a good one, because I have always been a reader of novels. The problem of the narrator seems to be the first problem you need to solve as a novelist and I probably have imbibed something of that. When I respond to things I don't want to know or care too much about them, I want to avoid a strong point of view on my subjects. So maybe you are responding to that.
You mean that a strong point of view would limit the inherent possibilities of the picture?
To do so would be starting to look for meaning, and that's premature in the process of making. It's better to ignore the meaning and pay attention to the making of the picture – its composition, how it’s enacted, everything formal and technical. What comes out of it would be an image that I hope isn’t cold and distant, but slightly detached. And that detachment can create a very open space for the viewer to react to.
The artist presents something to the public, but the perceptive process takes place between the artwork and the viewer.
I have said quite a few times it's the artist who erases the narrative in making the picture, a narrative which the viewer will then rewrite. There is a novelistic analogy, I think, to the experience of a picture. There's a deep relationship between literature and visual art. It's been there from the beginning. I feel that part of my work is writing the starting points of my pictures--'writing' meaning articulating for myself what has drawn me to that starting point.
In your work The Storyteller (1986), the title figure is placed far from the center of the image. She exists literally on the margins, sitting on a piece of no-man’s-land near a highway ramp. In the modern era, literature often gives an elaborate voice to people who are not normally heard. The Storyteller, which has the literary element in its title, has a similar effect on me, with its careful composition and large scale drawing attention to someone on the margins.
I’m glad you see it that way. All those considerations mention are basic to what I try to do. That is one of the reasons why it can be very hard for me to finally accept a subject and commit going ahead with it. I would like to be spontaneous about it – so that if something strikes me, I might immediately run with it. And that does happen. I did see the man with the milk, [„Milk“, 1984] and as soon as I saw him, I knew this was something I could do. I didn't have to analyze it very much, I could just tell. Other times it's not so clear. „The Storyteller“ actually began with the place, not the people, because I knew this spot very well. I liked the beautiful forms of the underside of the overpass and the slope of the terrain below it. It is a very beautifully shaped setting, even though it is, like you say, nowhere important in itself.
The six figures of "The Storyteller" are scattered across the the sloping hillside next to a highway, which the is just out of the image. Did you witness a similar scene there, as it was with "Milk"?
I had seen a similar gathering of indigenous people not far away about that time, and I realized that, together with the place I preferred, they made the picture possible. There is social truth to it, because people do, or did, gather there. The marginality of the people is something that I know about, but I have no more interest in "marginal" people than I have in "important" people.
Even though the picture was arranged, it captures reality.
I think it creates a picture that plausibly reveals social facts. The composition and the related choices I made conform to the actuality in question, don't add extraneous elements or conceal relevant matters. Another picture, „Man with a rifle“ (2000) – showing a man who doesn’t actually have a rifle – was made in a similar way. I saw someone making that gesture on a street in Vancouver. I went back to the original place very soon after, to consider whether it was possible to reconstruct the event there. but I didn't like it. It had no visual interest for me, no 'pictorial life' and in itself it had no inherent connection to the occurrence that had taken place there. So I found another site, which happened to be not far away from the original one – although it easily could have been far away. It doesn't matter since the occurrence didn't derive from any aspect of the place where I witnessed it. This is another example of what I think of as the 'plausibility principle'. If I should witness an occurrence that necessarily related to the place then I would need to work at that place. That is a judgement that I have to make each time. The location I chose for the man with his rifle made the picture richer. The trees for example are important, as well as the big car parked in the front right corner with its huge wheel facing you and all the reflections in the wheel. They are just beautiful, fascinating to look at. The photograph not only captures the guy without the rifle, but many other things that somehow tell you about the world, even though they don't necessarily comment on the action.
You spent most of your life in Vancouver. Is there something to the city that helps you find these moments? And would your work look much the same if you were based in London, New York or Rome, or another iconic city?
I had gone to London to study in the early 1970s for a few years. That was my first time away from Vancouver. When I came back to Canada, what struck me was the contrast between a famous place like London or Rome or Paris, and a very different place like Vancouver, which isn't unique in the way the great cities are. There are probably hundreds of Vancouvers around the world, and certainly dozens of them in North America. The city wasn't important as a unique place, but as a non-famous, non-central, non-iconic city that had a certain freshness to it because it hadn't been recorded all that much.. My aim hasn't been to valorize Vancouver in any way, it was just using it as an instance of the actuality of the world. A lot of things that I photographed could have been done in Düsseldorf or in any city really, even in Rome, Paris, London.
Over more than five decades, you have created around two hundred works that look at different aspects of – mostly urban — human life. Looking at your recently completed Catalogue Raisonée, your work strikes me as having an almost Balzacian approach.
I've always thought that Balzac's „Comédie Humaine“ with its aim to create an encyclopedic account of his time was a powerful idea. Balzac is not my favorite writer, but the idea that one could be 'encyclopedic' to some limited degree as an artist seemed significant. There's never an end to that project.
There’s always another novel – and another picture.
Yes, and that picture may not be at all like any previous one. Pictorial art has an endlessness to it. That is one of its real strengths and it probably shares this with the novel. There is always the possibility of a new person coming along to tell another story that hasn't been told before – and certainly not told in that voice. That is why I like what Baudelaire wrote about the role of the artist in „The Painter of Modern Life“. He didn’t define anything specifically but stated that we possess an ancient poetic capacity to compose that we project into our present moment. New things always come from it.
Thank you, Jeff!
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The interview was conducted by Boris Pofalla.
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With kind support by:
Kulturamt der Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf