08 Nov 2011

Jeff Wall: The Crooked Path at CGAC, Santiago de Compostela

Jeff Wall: The Crooked Path
12 November 2011–26 February 2012
 
Curator: Joël Benzakin in collaboration with Jeff Wall

Conceived and organised by the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels (Bozar) in collaboration with the CGAC

Canadian artist Jeff Wall is no doubt one of the most influential artists of recent decades. Since the late seventies his large-scale photographs placed in light boxes have been redefining the paradigms of the photographic medium. From the early stages of his career his images, with their allusions to art history, to be precise to classical painting, have reflected his firm belief that it is possible to maintain a certain continuity, even within the canons of Modernism and its postulate that it is possible to paint modern life.

The Crooked Path, which examines the context that favoured the development of Jeff Wall's oeuvre in a broad selection of works by the artist and others, aspires to offer a complete survey of the photographer's aesthetic concerns. The exhibition explores the close links between Wall's artistic process and its reflections and influences—pictorial, photographic, cinematographic, literary and documentary—that complemented his theoretical positions. The show hopes to present the internal logical of the artist's work and the aesthetic experiences that guided his decisions and his oeuvre as a whole. A number of essential themes will be tackled: Minimalism and its relationship with scale, historical photography, Conceptual and Post-Conceptual photography, literature, documentary photography, etc., illustrated by twenty-five os his own works from the seventies to date that will strike up specific associations with other works selected by Wall and by curator Joël Benzakin. The exhibition is not only a unique opportunity to take an in-depth look at the work of a referential creator of contemporary photography, but also, a means for his work to be reinscribed in the cultural context in which it was developed. Fifty-nine artists, from Eugène Atget to Luc Tuymans, have been carefully chosen to establish a rich dialogue with a creative path deep-rooted in photography, which wouud end up having an impact on the entire universe of contemporary art. 

The Crooked Path: 'It's a little path made by its users, without a plan, in order to do something that the usual administration could not or did not do – so there's a slight trace of disobedience or independence – people may do things that we can't predict.'  Jeff Wall