Jeff Wall has long been championed as the master of slow looking. Back in 1985, the year before he turned 40, the British Columbia-born artist received a tip from a close friend. He had, by that point, published landmark scholarly essays, held professorships and made some seminal images, though not that many. His friend had seen a woman fall off her horse, and thought that was something Wall should photograph. “He said: ‘That kind of looked like a subject you could do,’ and I totally disregarded it because I just wasn’t interested at the time. But, two years ago, it came back to me.”
Over the past 40 years, Wall has utilised the speed and precision of photography to make exquisite, arresting works based on furtive moments just like this. Ask him how he decides what to shoot and he’ll likely say he’s not sure. Somehow, a vision bubbles up to the surface of his mind. As the viewer, the work he makes in response demands your stillness.
