STILL LIVES

A new retrospective traces how Jeff Wall built a career out of meticulously staged moments

- By Lindsey King

JEFF WALL’S LARGE-SCALE IMAGES are windows into the theatre of the everyday. In one, a man casually backflips in the middle of a legion hall. Another shows a crowd of partygoers smoking outside a moonlit nightclub. Yet another features a horseback rider hauling herself up from the ground while the horse who tossed her looks on indifferently. Wall’s images seem natural and organic, as if plucked from daily life. But the reality is that most of them were meticulously staged. He often spent months gathering props, casting performers and producing sets on location or in studio before taking a photo.