Jeff Wall: Retrospective

2007 / 58 min. / color
Directed by Michael Blackwood

Jeff Wall, one of the most important and influential photographers working today, walks through his 2007 MoMA retrospective with curator Peter Galassi while the two discuss the various methods and movements that have guided Wall’s long spanning career. Jeff Wall describes his recent work as “near documentary,” a plausible account or a report on real or imagined encounters. Wall guides Galassi through his process, which tends to entail the photographer spending weeks painstakingly recreating encounters he has witnessed and taking many pictures, from which he selects his final image with a critical meticulousness. Through his photographic portraits, landscape, and light boxes, Wall’s work has played a key role in establishing photography as a contemporary art form.