Jeff Wall -- "I work in film..."

Pieter12 · Nov 12, 2021

MattKing said:
Unless of course this fits with your decor:

Jeff Wall, "The Destroyed Room", 1978
(referencing The Death of Sardanapalus 1827 by Eugène Delacroix)

I already have a Delacroix, no more room.

DREW WILEY · Nov 12, 2021

Matt - how did that guy sneak into my house and take a snapshot? I'm calling the cops.

Arthurwg · Nov 12, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Well, I'm certainly no fan of his - just doesn't quite ring true for me; and I don't consider his work as even legitimately photography, but more akin to Hollywood stage production genre . But it is otherwise interesting in its own way, and gives him a specific niche, and one way too expensive for many to mimic. And no, it's not "just film". There's a lot of post-manipulation. I think he's gone MF digital in the meantime, and have heard that his oversized prints are even more disappointing up close than before. At least he's honest about it, because he does not in fact take pictures or even discover them. And that's why he has zero influence on me. I prefer painters using real paint. But I take interest in all kinds of art genre that I'm not involved with personally, and he adds his own variety to the whole.

+1

Arthurwg · Nov 12, 2021

And while we are at it, I can't stand Crewdson's work either. Among other things, they both fail the economy of means test. And if I want big budget, large scale manufactured pictures I go to the movies. At least they move. Furthermore, Crewdson is a pompous ass.

DREW WILEY · Nov 12, 2021

Yeah, you could take any number of frames from Barry Lyndon, for example, and find some really solid camera craft in the painterly mode. Plus serious acting. But why go to the movies now? - mostly teenage blockbusters with a lot of digitization and so-so acting, even digital projection. I'd rather rent an old classic involving true Technicolor and superb cameramen and lighting. The problem is, I get so absorbed in the sheer skill level of the craft back then, I often lose track of the plot !

There are a number of current Brit productions that show up on PBS here that have the same effect on me - I watch em mostly for the sheer presentation skill, with even clothing color coordinated with certain surroundings outdoors, and not only indoors, studio-wise, right down to the time of day of the light or camera filters in place. And if there is any digital post-manipulation (versus post-editing), it sure doesn't show. And that's key for me. A good illusionist never shows their hand.

But with some of these setup photographers under question, the hand is rather obvious. And I've heard from others that digital artifacts are quite evident in a number of cases, close-up. I don't believe in any of that "normal viewing distance" nonsense, unless it's a billboard normally viewed a quarter mile from the highway. And now, even those are pixelated.

Arthurwg · Nov 12, 2021

I read an article about Kubrick and Barry Lyndon that explained his fanatical interest in ultra-fast lenses that would allow him to photograph extensively by candlelight. It's a gorgeous film. And Drew is right about most contemporary films. The fake digital stuff and pointless pyrotechnics ruins them. A case in point is Dune, which is a complete waste of time.

removed account4 · Nov 12, 2021

I enjoy the tableau style and the gigantic images big enough to fall into. so many details to be distracted by if you look up close. and so much to look at when you stand back.

DREW WILEY said:
Just a new herd of lemmings following another lemming which decided to go that direction, as far as I'm concerned. A

every generation has its own herd of lemmings following one another going in one direction or another.. same old same old

DREW WILEY · Nov 12, 2021

You're entirely correct, John. Any truly independent lemming is going to be picked off by fox or hawk rather quickly; but it's our choice whom to follow or not. I'd certainly like to find some museums, however, that think less like carbon copy lemmings.

removed account4 · Nov 12, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
You're entirely correct, John. Any truly independent lemming is going to be picked off by fox or hawk rather quickly; but it's our choice whom to follow or not. I'd certainly like to find some museums, however, that think less like carbon copy lemmings.

LOL. depends who's copy one is carbon copying .. everything has pretty much been done. everyone's copying everyone else anyways, not much new. just big

DREW WILEY · Nov 12, 2021

My late aunt was a famous muralist and fresco technique teacher as well as an art history professor, born long enough ago to remember the advent of Dada. In the Pop Art era someone had the audacity to hang a blank white canvas in a museum. My dad remembered a similar prank in the 1940's labeled, White Cow in a Snowstorm. But my aunt, his older sister, recalled it being done in the 1920's, and even in the prior Dada period; yet each museum episode thought it was something novel. Same goes for a push to repugnance, "if it offends people, it must be art". The first time she saw a dried flattened roadkill cat thumbtacked to a canvas was in the 1920's. But that stunt has been repeated multiple times too, clear up to the 90's as I seem to recall.

warden · Nov 13, 2021

Arthurwg said:
And while we are at it, I can't stand Crewdson's work either. Among other things, they both fail the economy of means test. And if I want big budget, large scale manufactured pictures I go to the movies. At least they move. Furthermore, Crewdson is a pompous ass.

You might enjoy Jörg Colberg's "Photography's Neoliberal Realism", published last year by Mack. It's short and inexpensive, basically a long essay. In it he discusses the work of Annie Leibovitz, Gregory Crewdson and Andreas Gursky. All three offer a similar visual propoganda but from different viewpoints. As you might expect, he doesn't hold their work up to admire it.

faberryman · Nov 13, 2021

Jeff Wall has embraced digital, so he has lost all relevance. A few years ago he had an exhibition of photographs taken with his phone entitled Nokia 3710. All that blah, blah, blah about film in the video is just blah, blah, blah.

sasah zib · Nov 13, 2021

removed account4 · Nov 13, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
My late aunt was a famous muralist and fresco technique teacher as well as an art history professor, born long enough ago to remember the advent of Dada. In the Pop Art era someone had the audacity to hang a blank white canvas in a museum. My dad remembered a similar prank in the 1940's labeled, White Cow in a Snowstorm. But my aunt, his older sister, recalled it being done in the 1920's, and even in the prior Dada period; yet each museum episode thought it was something novel. Same goes for a push to repugnance, "if it offends people, it must be art". The first time she saw a dried flattened roadkill cat thumbtacked to a canvas was in the 1920's. But that stunt has been repeated multiple times too, clear up to the 90's as I seem to recall.

what does this have to do with Jeff Wall or large scale tableau style images?
Are you suggesting that Crewdson and Wall's images push to repugnance and they are they made to offend people ?

faberryman said:
Of course, there's nothing wrong with preferring a time when we weren't ruled by alien lizard people.

you obviously don't realize we are still being ruled by alien lizard people. The Sleestack are communicating to us through our dental work and microwave ovens .. and lately all the fires being started by space lasers. where have you been ?

Arthurwg · Nov 13, 2021

sasah zib said:
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So SZ, can you understand it and dislike it?

Pieter12 · Nov 13, 2021

faberryman said:
Jeff Wall has embraced digital, so he has lost all relevance.

Relevance to what? As I recall, he doesn't consider himself a photographer.

Pieter12 · Nov 13, 2021

Many, if not most, cinematographers started out as still photographers. The know how to light, how to compose. However, because the picture is moving and a story is being told, there is more to take in than just the image. Making a still image that people can study for as long as they like, taking in details that might go unnoticed in a moving image can be much more challenging. Many photographers who do large-scale, elaborately staged and lit photographs the tell or infer a story end up with work that comes across as stilted, stiff and overdone.

pbromaghin · Nov 13, 2021

I don't care how much he constructs the scene - advertisement illustrations and cinema have always been constructs. If he presses the button, he takes pictures. I had never heard of him and like him less and less the more you guys discuss him.

DREW WILEY · Nov 13, 2021

Pieter - "overdone" is a good perspective on it. Or maybe "underdone". I don't like seeing the magician's trap-door hand behind the cloud of smoke. I'd rather actually discover something myself, no matter how seemingly trivial, than to concoct it artificially, no matter how big the budget. Money can't buy everything.

removed account4 · Nov 13, 2021

DREW WILEY said:
Pieter - "overdone" is a good perspective on it. Or maybe "underdone". I don't like seeing the magician's trap-door hand behind the cloud of smoke. I'd rather actually discover something myself, no matter how seemingly trivial, than to concoct it artificially, no matter how big the budget. Money can't buy everything.

as soon as you frame it with a camera you are concocting it artificially no matter how little the budget, there really isn't much of a difference as far as I can tell...

markjwyatt · Nov 13, 2021

Pieter12 said:
I don't think that "constructing" pictures makes one any less a still photographer. I consider it more like a still life, but with the addition of people. ...

I like this description the best. A still life can be set-up to tell a story.

markjwyatt · Nov 13, 2021

jnantz said:
as soon as you frame it with a camera you are concocting it artificially no matter how little the budget, there really isn't much of a difference as far as I can tell...

You can make a scene mean something very different in the frame then it was in reality by what you include and what you leave out for sure. If people or animals are present, the photographer being present and noticed, and more so pointing a camera into the scene can modify the scene also. But those are some of the limitations of photography, and can be used as a strength also in some cases (turn your liabilites into assets...).

removed account4 · Nov 13, 2021

markjwyatt said:
You can make a scene mean something very different in the frame then it was in reality by what you include and what you leave out for sure. If people or animals are present, the photographer being present and noticed, and more so pointing a camera into the scene can modify the scene also. But those are some of the limitations of photography, and can be used as a strength also in some cases (turn your liabilites into assets...).

couldn't agree more
I get kind of tired reading people who have such a chip on their shoulder
its too bad people who have made it are always reduced to hacks...
you'd think with all the sour grapes we'd at least have some wine..

markjwyatt · Nov 13, 2021

jnantz said:
...you'd think with all the sour grapes we'd at least have some wine..

That's referred to as "vinegar", aka Stop bath.

DREW WILEY · Nov 13, 2021

It's a brave new world. Things have gone far beyond just studio production setups prior to the shot. Now there are people like Gursky that move entire elements around, or subtract and add all kinds of things digitally afterwards. Then for some reason, some of these folks have the connections and finances to present the prints really big. Of course, it's hard to display something like that without a lot of abusive UV light being involved, so you can't expect them to last a long time. But people who buy that kind of thing can also afford a $50,000 party dress they wear only once. Conspicuous consumption.

And if that kind of thing is a museum rage today, within a decade every junior high kid will know how to do it fifty times cheaper, and down the line, whoever did it first will be forgotten. The digital world has a very short memory. But great paintings tend to be prized for centuries; because they don't depends on technology that makes itself obsolete every few years.

People like this Jeff Wall fellow really need to be discussed elsewhere. Once one is on that slippery slope, they're neither fish nor fowl, neither photographer nor painter. Glad he found his niche, but it ain't mine!

Jeff Wall -- "I work in film..."

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