Comments on: Episode 96: Jeff Wall

By: Mark Staff Brandl

Mark Staff Brandl — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 09:56:16 +0000

Love your comments Brad F. Very insightful. Seems to sum up my response to his work too. And the broadcast. Like Luc T — I think, I great guy, but I still don’t really like the work. Well, a little.

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:10:02 +0000

F-ing Canadians.

By: DREW

DREW — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 05:27:23 +0000

response to the response to Lucy’s comment,

what the hell are you talking about? no where in this thead is any talk of bunnies and art. where did you come from? who are your people? what do you have to say that matters?

we hate anonymous posts here. bad form. bad form.

any way…

i feel i was totally blown away by the jeff walls show after hearing the interview. I agree with brad and richard- wasn’t that big of a fan, but now I appreciate his work and the guy. thanks bad at sports for making me like art! yay!

go canada!

By: response to Lucy's comment

response to Lucy's comment — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 18:35:37 +0000

you’re a crazy bunny lady, get over it. bunnies don’t make for good art, try the human body more often, now there’s endless expression, question is can you capture it?

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 17:30:09 +0000

I never hated him, but I was never terribly excited about the stuff until I looked at a bunch of it in conjunction with the interview and I was brought around.

That jerk.

By: brad farwell

brad farwell — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:24:55 +0000

See, as a photographer, I’ve always hated Jeff Wall, in a patricidal kinda way.

I feel like his photography ushered in a whole (continuing) generation of photographs of shit looking like paintings, big empty images that are serving as stages without any sort of real action. There’s a fundamental lack of urgency to his images, something that asks only for my _consideration_ rather than my engagement.

I think that this is, in part, due to the lack of a ‘surface’ or ‘object’ in photography. Painting has long dealt with the actual material, the object-hood of the painting and the paint (indeed, some might say that painting navel-gazed the shit out of those topics)

Photography has not really considered the surface or the object much, with a few exceptions. The difficulty in presenting a painting-like tableau without the painterly object is that you risk losing any connection to the work. It becomes a Brechtian self-aware construction, and even that only second-hand; I’m seeing a fiction that I know is a fiction, but I’m not even getting to thrill of really seeing the constructed fictional object, I’m just getting a medium-less documentation of it.

Sort of like just reading snopes.com for fun; you don’t even get the excitement of the original ridiculous rumor in your inbox and your reaction to it, you just have a dry recounting of the rumor followed by analytical discussion of its merits.

any reaction, wallovers?

but my point was that now, after the interview, i kinda like the guy.

so fuck you, BAS, for taking away my ability to hate.

By: lucy fabio

lucy fabio — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 06:08:43 +0000

just wanted to add about the whole Featherproof thing. terri was talking about other odd things that could be proofed.. she mentioned “bunny proof” That is an actual term.. If you google it, lots of ways to keep your pet rabbit from being electrocuted will come up and how to keep your furniture safe. I’m sure my two pet bunnies should come up.

It was really nice to hear duncan’s love of jeff wall- it really pushed the interview foward, and made me feel all giddy.

goodbye (for a while) to amanda-

I also agree that terri is great and should do more interviews.

By: hamlett

hamlett — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 11:07:27 +0000

i sometimes cringe when duncan does an interview (see gavin turk and joe ketner podcast) but i have to give him a solid round of applause for the interview with jeff wall. you could really tell that duncan had a history with the man’s work and that his insights lead to some great questions. duncan kept his meandering non-question questions to a minimum and let wall have plenty of room to spread out and talk. congrats on the big score, you guys are getting some heavy hitters. i hope with amanda leaving for NYC that terri will get to do more pieces, she’s really great on the show. i always recommend the podcast to artists/students here in Memphis. Keep up the great work Bad at Sports.

By: Anni Holm

Anni Holm — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:09:11 +0000

Bye Bye Amanda, Good luck in NYC! Wondering if you are going to track down some of all the other Chicago artists who has been migrating there? Would be interesting to hear how NY has been/is treating them.. Thanks for the Jeff Wall interview, missed the talk, so this was a great surprise.

By: Paul Klein

Paul Klein — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:01:10 +0000

It’s great that Jeff Wall is interviewed on Bad at Sports. Maybe this is attributable to Duncan’s being Canadian. It is important for all of us to acknowledge where we are and where we came from. Kudos to Duncan for doing both. Chicago is not the only art scene on the planet. We need to remain open to what is good elsewhere.

I’ve always found Wall’s work enigmatic. Though it is comprised of many photographs it always seems seamless to me. I have difficulty deciphering the process the way I usually can with a painting. Despite its “painterly” composition I see a single gestalt. The interview helps me better understand his process and intent, which is not to say that I grasp it. Maybe seeing his exhibition will be different this time.