Tim Birch

JEFF Wall is late. But then heés en route from Vancouver, Canada via Germany. So I lurch around the space, tugged by panoramic lightboxes encasing cibachrome transparencies é backlit. Category: Landscape.

In brief, these lightboxes show Urbanism encroaching on natural space, or some kind of territorial interplay between culture and nature, civilisation and wilderness. Or so it seems. Another glance reveals an oxymoron: this is painterly photography. For example, éSteveés Farm, Stevestoné (1980) has a symmetry akin to the 16th century, Renaissance style.

On the left-hand side is an old, nigh-on defunct, rural setting. Ramshackle yet residential, ités complete with a stream for water supply, horses for transport and labour, and rusty farm machinery. On the right hand side, a road leads to a modern, uniform, housing complex. The axis é provided by stream and road in parallel é is a diagonal, in the 17th century style, that really brings out a 3-D effect. It helps to disorient, enhancing the juxtaposition of worlds.

Are they forever out of reach or about to collide? é Heés got me engaged, guessing; good. What is sure, is that such imagery is resonant for contemporary audiences despite being 20 years old. When Jeff Wall strolls in, he emanates a calm vibe. No thundering ego, sly self-importance.

Largesse

Encouraged by this, I dive in. Given the Canadianés evident interest in Western painting, I prompt him by asking if the 19th century American phenomenon of éthe big pictureé inspired his own largesse. éWell, when I started doing photography in the é60s, I thought that good, serious art photography was too small.

''Meant for books. One of the things I learned from painting was that when a picture sits on a wall of a certain scale and you stand in a room, you have a certain kind of experience. A group of people can see the picture easily at the same time.

'' Iém not sure my pictures contain a political element, in the sense of making political statements, but they contain images of political life, or relationships, as they appear.é

Wall freezes such appearances in the chemical memory of the photograph, for all-comers to mull over. They are ephemeral moments yet they invoke eternal time All too soon, our moment has gone.

But not before Iéve perceived a pragmatic, lucid, sentient man via what he calls épicture-makingé. Before parting, Wall quotes Kant: éArt is not thought, it is food for thought.é Indulge.

Jeff Wall: Landscapes. Manchester Art Gallery until Sunday, February 2.

The above interview is an extract from a fuller version available in City Life magazine December 18 - January 9.

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