In his impressive analysis Stefan Banz examines how Jeff Wall uses camera, computer, actors, and specialists to generate a visual event that provokes epistemological questions in the viewer; illustrates how the artist—beyond avant-garde criteria—develops a sophisticated and engaging imagery that deals not only with the everyday but also with the history of art; and meticulously explores how Wall reflects the role of the recipient in his compositions.
In this sense, Banz shows with the eyes of an active observer how art for Wall has an inexhaustible metaphorical power that both enriches and upsets our visual concepts. and he also creates new, startling references between Wall’s photographic works and paintings by such different artists as Diego Velázquez, Jan Vermeer, Claude Monet, Frederic Remington, Hans Emmenegger, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dalí.