Jeff Wall, the crooked path

More about the book

Jeff Wall's photography is deeply embedded in social contexts, emerging from the Vancouver art community in the late 1970s. His work engages with contemporary racial and gender politics, presented through large-scale photographic light boxes that assert their equivalence to painting in both scale and depth. Wall's staged compositions draw from a rich art historical background, referencing artists from Hokusai to Velázquez and Manet, and he has significantly influenced generations of photographers, particularly the Düsseldorf school. "Jeff Wall: The Crooked Path" explores the cultural context of Wall's achievements, featuring 25 photographs he selected from the late 1970s to the present. These images are presented alongside works by notable artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Diane Arbus, and Andreas Gursky. The book is structured into ten themed chapters, each introduced by an interview with Wall conducted by Hans De Wolf, and includes essays and testimonies from fellow artists and art historians, enriching the discourse surrounding Wall's impactful work.