Learning from Jeff Wall

Michael Fried
November 29, 2022
Words & Images

Tags: art and photography, contemporary art, contemporary photography, history of photography, Jeff Wall, Michael Fried, vancouver

I share here a short excerpt from Michael Fried incredible book “Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before”, which I believe is must-read for any photographer. In particular, this is a focus on one of my favorite works by Jeff Wall – A View from an Apartment. The final image is the result of a precise research of the setting, the subjects, the furniture, the view – Wall is able to carefully stage a scene that became extraordinarily ordinary.

“[Wall] searched extensively for an apartment that would have the kind of view he wanted; this took a long time but eventually he found what he was after and rented the apartment for an indefinite period.”

There is one even more recent work by Wall, A View from an Apartment (2004-5) […] The setting, as in many of his works, is Wall’s native Vancouver, a city built around a magnificent natural harbor. For years Wall had wanted to make a picture based on a view of the harbor through a window, and finally he decided to do so. This is what doing so entailed.

First, he searched extensively for an apartment that would have the kind of view he wanted; this took a long time (Wall spends many hours driving around Vancouver looking for settings and subjects) but eventually he found what he was after and rented the apartment for an indefinite period. Second, he held casting tryouts to discover a young woman who would suit the sort of picture he had in mind. His choice was the model for the walking figure to the left, a former art student in her early twenties. Wall discussed the project with her at length, explaining that to all intents and purposes she would be his collaborator rather than simply the subject of a photo. Toward that end he gave her money to furnish and decorate the apartment according to her tastes (and according to the financial level they agreed a young woman like herself would be living at). Over a period of weeks and months she did that. In addition, Wall encouraged her to spend as much time as possibile in the apartment, so that it would come to fell familiar to her. She did that also. Further conversation led to the decision that she would not be alone in the photograph but would have a friend for company; the friend, chosen by the young woman, was also encouraged to spend time in the apartment, which she did. It was then necessary to determinate what the two women would be doing in the picture; Wall told me that the one thing he knew he wanted was for one of the women to be engaged in ironing napkins or some similar activity. […]

“The entire project from start to finish – from renting the apartment to the final image – took more than two years”

Eventually a basic scenario was decided on and the shooting began; it lasted about two weeks, as Wall had the women repeat these and other actions again and again in an attempt to achieve an effect of naturalness. It also became clear to Wall that the ideal hour for the picture was dusk, when street lamps and other lights came on outside. This meant that photographically speaking there was an obvious mismatch between the interior illumination of the apartment (itself the result of lights not depicted in the photograph) and the crepuscular scene through the window, a mismatch that Wall handled by shooting the two separately and then reconciling them with the aid of a computer […]. In fact the picture as it now stands is the product of numerous shots that have been seamlessly blended together digitally. The entire project from start to finish – from renting the apartment to the final image – took more than two years.