Project Gallery: Jeff Wall

Vancouver-based artist Jeff Wall (b. 1946) presents several new photographic works in the Bank of America Project Gallery on the first floor of the museum. Shot in Los Angeles, these new works take as their subject homeless individuals who live in the streets, under highways and in urban back alleys, positioned within compositions that reference the history of figurative painting and sculpture. Wall’s photographs involve extensive staging of each fictional scene that he depicts. He works in a manner similar to that of a film director, with his projects involving extensive lighting, actors and elaborate preparations of each location. Since the 1970s Wall has been producing enigmatic, large-scale works that place photography in direct dialogue with painting’s art history and with conceptual art practices related to the photographic medium. Urban development, class and social issues have continually been subjects in his works and specifically homeless individuals have appeared repeatedly within his investigations; all themes that create a strong dialogue with Miami’s rapidly changing urban context.