Jeff Wall (*1946)

As a master of meticulously-staged scenarios in his large-format transparencies, the choice of motif in Morning Cleaning provided Jeff Wall with a worthy equivalent in architecture. For the World Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929, Mies van der Rohe created a pavilion that was thought-out down to the last detail. Jeff Wall took the finely balanced interior and exterior design of the pavilion a stage further, throwing this carefully calculated ensemble out of balance by including a window cleaner. And yet the result is not an obvious image of chaos; it simply counters the rhythm of the interior in the subtlest manner. ___