Art Review
His constructed images feel especially relevant as we navigate AI and questions about photographic reliability.
Jeff Wall, “In front of a nightclub” (2006), transparency in light box (all photos Neil Price/Hyperallergic)
TORONTO — Throughout his long career in photography, Jeff Wall has never been interested in capturing Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment.” For more than four decades, the renowned Vancouver-based artist has treated the camera not as a tool for recording reality, but as a medium for playfully constructing it. But his body of work feels especially relevant — if a tad politically disengaged — right now, as we navigate AI-generated images, deepfakes, and questions about photographic reliability. Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, his first major Canadian survey in over 25 years, fills three floors at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto with his large-scale light boxes and carefully staged photographs. In an era of endless (and mindless) scrolling, Wall’s work invites us to slow down and look carefully and imaginatively, both challenging and expanding what we think about photographic truth.
Consider “The Flooded Grave” (1998–2000), where digital editing transforms a desolate burial site into an impossible vision: ocean water filling the grave’s ready hollow, flecked with starfish, a beguiling image pulled from the artist’s dreams. Or “Dead Troops Talk (a vision after an ambush of a Red Army Patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, winter 1986)” (1992), where fallen soldiers lie across a gnarled battlefield, appearing to converse openly after death. Most of the media we consume today charges ever-forward — film or TV, short-form video, the endless scroll — but Wall’s photographs hold us in place, suspending disbelief to encourage all kinds of imaginative leaps.
Jeff Wall, “The Flooded Grave” (1998–2000), transparency in light box
In “Event” (2021), two theater ushers are seen mid-argument, one man angrily thrusting his finger toward the other’s chest. Did his coworker steal his shift? Is the play about to happen, or did it already happen? Or consider Wall’s famed “In front of a nightclub” (2006), where a throng of sidewalk dwellers appears to pulse with club night energy and expectation. The dramatic tableaux intentionally leave space for empathy, calling up sensory responses that move us beyond merely observing the scene. They invite us to imagine the sounds, the temperature, the drama just before and after the action. They demand and train an increasingly rare form of sustained attention simply through the arresting magnetism of his imagery.
That’s not to say that the exhibition doesn’t indulge in spectacle; it certainly prioritizes Wall’s large lightbox transparencies and life-size prints. But quieter, smaller pieces generate their own pull. Backlit transparencies like “The Pine on the Corner” (1990) glow with alluring intensity and personal familiarity, like a memory. And Wall’s formative interest in painting comes through strongly in works such as “Diagonal Composition” (1993), a slanted image of a dirty studio sink, tiled backsplash, and piece of soap that reveals his concern for color, composition, and the inner workings of image-making.
As all thoughtfully conceived surveys should, the exhibition rewards patience and close attention. Much has been made about Wall’s images surfacing enduring questions about narrative, time, and possibility. But this is also photography that resists cursory consumption — radical, in the age of image overload. It insists on being experienced rather than seen.
Jeff Wall, “Dead Troops Talk (a vision after an ambush of a Red Army Patrol, near Moqor, Afghanistan, winter 1986)” (1992), transparency in light boxJeff Wall, “Event” (2021), inkjet printJeff Wall, “Diagonal Composition” (1993), transparency in light box
Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023 continues at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (158 Sterling Road #100, Toronto, Canada) through March 22, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Kathleen Bartels.
