Exploration of Time in Jeff Wall’s Photography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47451/art2022-02-02Keywords:
conceptual art, conceptual photography, Jeff Wall, time, fiction, tableau, narrative photography, staged photography, ambiguity, transdisciplinary, interdisciplinaryAbstract
Conceptual photography, since the 1960’s, has developed a different approach to photographing than any other photographical genre. Its main focus was on the concept behind the image, on its idea. However, my aim, in this article, is to analyze a variation of conceptual photography, more precisely the narrative one, its history and aesthetics, but also how it was explored by Jeff Wall (b. 1946) and how the Canadian artist approached and integrated time in his photographs. The main purpose of this article is to understand Jeff Wall’s place in the history of staged photography and to understand how he developed a creative type of visual narration and its relationship to time. This aspect will be seen in relation to the idea of fiction because the imaginary narration is closely linked with the progression of time. Also, this analysis could be particularly relevant in the context of photographical studies because it focuses on an aspect that has quite psychological and aesthetical depth but it is not present in the field of artistic academic research, namely the connection between fiction and photography. It can also be seen trans- and interdisciplinary.
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