Jeff Wall

Jeff Wall’s photographic production of recent years is encapsulated here, reflecting the culmination of an interest in contemporaneity as evolved by the artist over several decades. The exhibition—which includes two installations, one featuring a series of expansive landscapes taken in 2007 and another of genrelike depictions of banal yet idiosyncratic details of contemporary life dating from the past two years—suggests a nuanced and continuous engagement with historical conventions of representation. Perhaps for this reason, Wall’s newer pieces may initially seem simply to revisit his earlier work, which drew inspiration from the trajectory of modernist painting. These recent images, however, show the continued relevance of Wall’s project, which, rather than simply quoting tradition, speaks fluently from within the metalanguage of the art-historical discourse in order to further capture a Baudelairean sense of heroism in the banal.

In Boxing, 2011, for instance, two adolescent boys are seen within a sterile beige interior, clad only in boxing gloves and shorts. The theoretically heated act in which they engage contrasts with the scene’s dispassionate portrayal, as one boy throws a punch that his aggressor easily dodges. As well, the obvious affluence of the setting—indicated by its pristine conditions and the presence of numerous seemingly original works of art—alludes to the boys’ upper-class status and, in its genteel appearance, belies their pretensions of toughness. The photograph’s uniform tonality, carefully arranged composition, and deadpan approach combine to produce an image that is primarily about capturing the momentum of modern life and the conventions of representation. At the same time, however, the obvious staging and deliberate ennui of the image offer a nod to postmodern practice. This synthesis yields images that are perpetually relevant, amusing, and engaging—a body of work committed to the lessons of neither the present nor the past.