Arthur Lubow does Jeff Wall in the New York Times Magazine
Howdy!
In case you missed it Mr. Lubow writes more than 8,000 words in celebration of Mr. Wall's exhibit ay MoMA. On one hand I should be chuffed with pride, and going boogedy, boogedy, boogedy all over the place. After all a Canadian Artist at MoMA it doesn't get better than that, does it?
But all I can really say is about 2,000 words in to the article, the subject no longer interested me, and that Andreas Gursky is nine years younger and had his show at MoMA "(traveling later to the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)" five years ago which (if my math is right) means that he is 14 years ahead of Mr. Wall. And personally, as far as large staged photographs, I prefer Gregory Crewsdon or if you want local, the Sanchez brothers.
And talk about catching the tail end of the wave... Mr. Wall also makes it into that notoriously cutting edge magazine called Time.
[Update 6:30 pm: Having forced myself to read the article Mr. Wall seems to embody absolutely everything I find atrocious in the contemporary art world. Lines such as 'Wall has, in his landscapes, zeroed in on an equipoise between the natural and the man-made.' And '(“People’s metabolism is different at night, their coloring is different,” he explains.)' And 'the physical animal energy that is present on the street and waiting to be disposed of.' And 'There is a kind of Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk quality.' where they misuse the term Gesamtkunstwerk. Give me a break! Call a spade a spade, and I think Mr. Wall would be much better served copying the Hollywood he seems to love so much, by making mass reproductions of his snapshots and selling them at the mall. I don't know what his actual margin on each picture is, but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts he'd make more money.]
In case you missed it Mr. Lubow writes more than 8,000 words in celebration of Mr. Wall's exhibit ay MoMA. On one hand I should be chuffed with pride, and going boogedy, boogedy, boogedy all over the place. After all a Canadian Artist at MoMA it doesn't get better than that, does it?
But all I can really say is about 2,000 words in to the article, the subject no longer interested me, and that Andreas Gursky is nine years younger and had his show at MoMA "(traveling later to the Art Institute of Chicago and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)" five years ago which (if my math is right) means that he is 14 years ahead of Mr. Wall. And personally, as far as large staged photographs, I prefer Gregory Crewsdon or if you want local, the Sanchez brothers.
And talk about catching the tail end of the wave... Mr. Wall also makes it into that notoriously cutting edge magazine called Time.
[Update 6:30 pm: Having forced myself to read the article Mr. Wall seems to embody absolutely everything I find atrocious in the contemporary art world. Lines such as 'Wall has, in his landscapes, zeroed in on an equipoise between the natural and the man-made.' And '(“People’s metabolism is different at night, their coloring is different,” he explains.)' And 'the physical animal energy that is present on the street and waiting to be disposed of.' And 'There is a kind of Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk quality.' where they misuse the term Gesamtkunstwerk. Give me a break! Call a spade a spade, and I think Mr. Wall would be much better served copying the Hollywood he seems to love so much, by making mass reproductions of his snapshots and selling them at the mall. I don't know what his actual margin on each picture is, but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts he'd make more money.]
posted by Zeke's, the Montreal Art Gallery on 25.2.07
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