Jeff Wall Figures & Places : Selected Works from 1978-2000

In his staged situations based on everyday scenes, the Canadian artist Jeff Wall creates a subtle interplay between carefully selected settings and strongly defined figures. The aesthetic fascination that the back-lit transparencies have on the viewer is intensified by their striking brilliance. By looking carefully at Wall's works, however, layers of complex spatial, temporal and contextual issues emerge -- issues that reflect different aspects of our present-day reality. At first glance, the places, scenes and activities depicted in Wall's works look like snapshots, often taken from a distant perspective. Closer examination reveals that they are meticulously staged compositions. The artist incorporates figures within urban, rural or architectural contexts so that they become actors relating a story. The presence of one or more figures lends scenes a frequently mask-like appearance, often verging on the grotesque, and their activities, be they routine or unusual, become 'images of collective memories.' Book jacket.