There’s something both cinematic and theatrical about the work of photographer Jeff Wall, even in those of his images which are unstaged. The Canadian has a knack of finding the drama in any situation, and is a skilled practitioner at creating scenes with a strong narrative and just the right amount of plausible reality, often based on his own experiences.
Jeff Wall – Tableaux Pictures Photographs 1996–2013 is the first major photography exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum since its re-opening a couple of years ago. The year 1996 is an important one for Wall as it marked the artist’s first output in black and white paper prints; since beginning his career in the the ’80s he had worked in colour transparencies backlit by fluorescent strips in lightboxes of the kind usually employed in advertising. Wall is also a pioneer in the field of large-scale photography, and the show occupies four exhibition spaces in the museum. Running from 1 March to 3 August.