After “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison the “Preface” represents a well-known scene from Ellison’s classic novel. Wall’s version shows us the cellar room, “warm and full of light,” in which Ellison’s narrator lives, complete with its 1,369 lightbulbs. Energy and light, stolen from the electric company, illuminate not only the character’s basement dwelling but also the truth of his existence.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison the “Preface”, 1999-2001, 193.7×269.9 cm, Marian Goodman Gallery, NY © Jeff Wall

He tells us: “Light confirms my reality, gives birth to my form… Without light I am not only invisible but formless as well; and to be unaware of one’s form is to live a death… The truth is the light and light is the truth.” – Jeff Wall

A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), 1993, 250×397 cm, Tate Gallery © Jeff Wall

“A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)” was inspired by a woodcut print one of “Thirty-six views of Fuji” by the nineteenth-century Japanese artist Hokusai. In this contemporary landscape Wall replaces Mount Fuji with a high-rise, and the windswept peasants with builders and surveyors. Nature is shown as an immutable force, capable of transforming our most ambitious projects into comedy. The wind spins the figures into baroque contortions, their documents flying through the air with the autumn leaves. A winding river that recalls classical Arcadian scenes, comes to a dead end, compounding the bleakness of the site. Although the image appears to capture a single moment, it was staged using actors and digitally synthesised from separate photographs taken over a five-month period.

Modern Life Through the Lens of Jeff Wall
Date: March 22nd – May 25th, 2003
Open: 10:00 – 18:00
Place: Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna
Address: 1 Museumsplatz, 1070 Wien
Tel: +43 (0)1 525 000
info@mumok.at
https://www.mumok.at