Jeff Wall (b.1946, Vancouver)

The Destroyed Room, a seminal early work by Jeff Wall (b.1946), alludes to nineteenth-century history painting, specifically The Death of Sardanapalus, 1827, by Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), which presents the defeat of an Assyrian monarch as an Orientalist spectacle. Wall’s reference to and reinterpretation of history painting works on multiple levels, at once staging destruction for aesthetic pleasure and asking spectators to consider their voyeuristic relation to representations of disaster. His photographs are often inspired by episodes from daily life or by other artworks, and unlike documentary photographs that portray a fragment of an event or narrative, they appear complete in themselves. Wall has achieved international acclaim and is one of the most prominent artists associated with Vancouver photo-conceptualism.

Wall is known for his large-scale backlit colour transparencies displayed in light boxes, a format he began working with in the late 1970s as he turned away from Conceptual art and engaged with the theatricality of television, advertising, and commercial window display.  During this period, he also developed a concept of cinematic tableau to structure his work.

In the 1980s, Wall began to construct vignettes that appear real to explore situations or experiences that defy photographic representation. This includes works such as Mimic, 1982, which addresses the subtle dynamics of racism, and Milk, 1984, a consideration of social exclusion that uses spilled milk to convey distress.  Trained as an art historian, Wall has written about the work of other artists and has talked extensively about his own work. His essays and interviews convey his philosophical interests and have shaped the way critics and curators have interpreted his art.  Wall taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Simon Fraser University, and the University of British Columbia, where he was a full professor until his retirement in 1999, and he influenced a generation of artists, including Ken Lum (b.1956). In 2007 Wall was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, and he received the Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts in 2008.