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Photography and Jeff Wall

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Photography and Jeff Wall
An Exploration into Truth and Reality within Photographic Practice Adhering to a Realist
Aesthetic.

In this essay I will explore notions of truth and reality in relation to photography of a realist aesthetic, in particular the genres of tableau and documentary. Tableau 's roots are in early pictorial photography which strove for balanced and harmonious compositions1. Borrowing from classical painterly aesthetics tableau photographs are made for the wall; to be looked at from a distance like paintings.2 A defining feature of the majority of tableau, and the images referred to in this essay is the use of models, or “posing”3. Documentary photography does not adhere to any particular aesthetic style, instead focusing on “the premise that the photograph is a transcription of reality that contains fact, evidence, and truth.”4

I am interested in the boundaries surrounding the real and authenticity (truth) that photography makes for itself, their flexibility, and whether the nature of documentary leads it to superiority over tableau at transmitting messages. It seems that the transmittance of truths requires a basis in reality, and tableau, constructing rather than directly taking from the world, implies the need for more complicated system of understanding if it is to provide any truth. In the case of realist aesthetics, reality is inferred to the viewer and a contract of reality between image and viewer in place. I am concerned with whether this contract gets broken by tableau, and what implications this has on the transmittance of truth.

Susan Sontag writes:

“The history of photography could be recapitulated as the struggle between two different
1
2
3
4

Jones, Bernard Edward, Encyclopedia of Photography (New York: Arno Press Inc, 1974) 137.
Fried, Michael, Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before (London: Yale University Press, 2008) 143 – 144.
Fried, 34.
Stroebel, Leslie, and Richard Zakia, The Focal Encyclopedia of


Bibliography: Aitken, Ian. The Documentary Film Movement: An Anthology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998. Badiou, Alain. Handbook of Inaesthetics. Trans. Alberto Toscano. California: Stanford University Press, 2005. Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. London: Vintage, 1993. Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. London: Jonathan Cape, 1967. Barthes, Roland. “Rhetoric of the Image.” Working Papers in Cultural Studies. Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 1971. Bate, David. Photography: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg, 2009. Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. Trans. Jonathan Mayne. Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1995. Belt, Angela Faris. The Elements of Photography. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Inc, 2008. Benjamin, Walter. “A Short History of Photography.” Screen Spring (1972). Burgin, Victor. Thinking Photography. London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1982. Burgin, Victor. Work and Commentary. London: Latimer New Dimensions, 1973. Culler, Jonathan. Structuralist Poetics. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975. Duve, Thierry de. “The Photograph as Paradox.” October 5 (1978). Enright, Robert. “The Consolation of Plausibility.” Border Crossings. 19.1. 2000: 38 – 51. Fisher, Jean. Passages and Incidents. Cambridge: Kettles Yard, 1996. Flusser, Vilém. Towards a Philosophy of Photography. Trans. Anthony Mathews. London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2000. Fried, Michael. Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before. London: Yale University Press, 2008. Wall, Jeff. Jeff Wall. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1996. Grant, Damian. Realism: The Critical Idiom. London: Methuen, 1970. Jones, Bernard Edward. Encyclopedia of Photography. New York: Arno Press Inc, 1974. Lacan, Jacques. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979. Leslie, John. Writing on Photography (and the Real). Wolverhampton: Light House, 1999. Maynard, Patrick. The Engine of Visualization: Thinking Through Photography. New York: Cornell University Press, 1997. Myers, Tony, and Lacan.com. “Slavoj Žižek – Key Ideas.” Chronology. 1997/2006. 1st April 2011 . Phaidon. “The World of Jeff Wall.” Picture Galleries. 2010. Phaidon Press Ltd. 8th April 2011 . Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998. Scruton, Robert. Art and Imagination. London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1974. Shore, Stephen. The Nature of Photographs: A Primer. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 2007. Sontag, Susan. On Photography. London: Penguin, 1977. Stroebel, Leslie, and Richard Zakia. The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography. Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemamn, 1993. Talbot, William Henry Fox. The Pencil of Nature. New York: Da Capo Press, 1969. Trachtenberg, Alan. Classic Essays on Photography. New Haven: Leete 's Island Books Inc, 1980. Webster, Frank. The New Photography: Responsibility in Visual Communication. London: John Calder Ltd., 1980. Wall, Jeff. “Press Release.” Jeff Wall: New Work. Marian Goodman Gallery. New York (2002) n.p. Warwick Arts Centre. “MP-STARH-00089-A-300.” Slideshow for Hannah Starkey. 2011. 8th April 2011 . Warwick Arts Centre. “MP-STARH-00107-A-300.” Slideshow for Hannah Starkey. 2011. 8th April 2011 . Žižek, Slavoj, and Glyn Daly. Conversations with Žižek. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004. Žižek, Slavoj, Rex Butler and Scott Stephens. Interrogating the Real. London: Continuum, 2006.
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