The
Renaissance
Society

at The University of Chicago
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Publications

Jeff Wall

 
 

1983, 12 pp., 3 color illus., paperback
$10.00
Members: $8.00

 
  Essay by Ian Wallace

Wall's groundbreaking version of photographic practice stretches beyond the boundaries of representation and illusion by provocatively asserting the stability and necessity of these integral components of pictorial tropes. Believing that representational picture construction remains vital to our understanding of the world, Wall restages compositional schemes from painting masterpieces in alternative settings, with alternative means, but avoids the postmodernist use of quotation or appropriation. History, still life, portraiture and tableau painting are revisited and reinterpreted in large scale, back-lit, photographic transparencies to affirm the importance of illusionism, pictorial narrative and genre to create what Ian Wallace calls the avant-garde "ideal in the world. This exhibition catalogue dates from the early moments of Wall's emergence, offering a glimpse of how Wall's innovations were situated within and yet against the photographic practices of early 1980's postmodernism.

   
   
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