MOCA Toronto is proud to present Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, a comprehensive survey of one of Canada’s most influential living artists. Wall’s first major Canadian survey in over 25 years, and his first in Toronto in 35 years, this monumental exhibition spans all three floors of the museum. Including light box transparencies, black and white photographs, and colour prints, the extensive selection of works at MOCA traces four decades of Wall’s practice, offering the opportunity to experience the full scope of his contributions to contemporary photography.
An internationally celebrated artist, Wall is best known for his large-scale lightboxes and his pioneering approach to photography. Since the 1960s, he has profoundly influenced the artform through his bold experimentation with scale, texture, colour, subject matter, and production techniques, redefining the possibilities of the medium.
Highlighting photographs composed in Canada, the exhibition invites visitors to explore the history, evolution, and future of lens-based art in this country. At a time of renewed Canadian focus, it celebrates the powerful and enduring role photography has played in contributing to the nation’s cultural identity. For audiences, this is an opportunity to engage with Canadian history through the lens of one of its most influential contemporary artists.
Visitors are welcomed on Floor 1 by Children, a group of circular portraits depicting children from diverse cultural backgrounds. Set against dramatic cloud formations, the children are elevated to positions of power typically reserved for adults and heroic figures. This series is anchored by Young Man Wet with Rain—a larger-than-life, meticulously staged portrait that adds intensity to the floor’s opening experience. On Floors 2 and 3, Wall’s works unfold in a loose and poetic chronological order, tracing recurring themes such as the tension between reality and fiction, social marginalization, and the quiet dignity of everyday life. Even his most unsettling images—depicting struggle or landscapes fouled by thoughtless behavior—possess a haunting beauty and strength.
Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023 Publication
Accompanying the exhibition, MOCA will publish a comprehensive hardcover publication, Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023. This book, elegantly designed by Studio: Blackwell, will feature works presented in the exhibition, embodying its energy and the layered connections between works. Contributions include an introduction by MOCA Executive Director and curator of the exhibition, Kathleen Bartels, an extensive interview by Robert Enright, and an essay by Meeka Walsh, both acclaimed critics and writers. This publication will be available for purchase at the MOCA shop and online.
About the Artist
Born in 1946, Jeff Wall has been involved in artistic creation since his childhood in Vancouver. Initially engaged with drawing and painting, Wall took up photography in the late 1960s. After a lengthy period of study and artistic experimentation, Wall began making the photographic art for which he is now renowned in 1977. Wall lives in Vancouver and Los Angeles.
Wall has exhibited his photographs internationally for the past forty years including selections in four Documentas, biennales in Venice, São Paulo, Sydney, and Moscow, and solo exhibitions organized by many of the most prestigious art institutions in the world such as Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the Glenstone Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, Kunsthalle Mannheim, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts. In 2024–25 solo presentations of the artist’s work were featured at the Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, White Cube, London, Gagosian, New York, and the Museum of Art, Architecture, and Technology, Lisbon. In Canada solo exhibitions have been organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Yedessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto, and Canton–sardine, Vancouver.
Wall is acknowledged as one of the most accomplished artist-writers of his generation. His writings range across a variety of topics, from theoretical propositions on photography and art to essays on fellow contemporary artists and major art-historical figures. Wall’s critical writing has been published on many occasions and in several languages. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and his art is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Glenstone Museum, Schaulager, the Centre Pompidou, the National Gallery of Canada, Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Wall has received numerous awards for his photographic works of art, including the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography in 2002, the Roswitha Haftmann-Preis in 2003, and the Audain Prize for the Visual Arts in 2008.
Exhibition Team
Kathleen Bartels, Executive Director & CEO, Exhibition Curator
Rui Amaral Mateus, Artistic Director
Warren Harper, Exhibition Manager
Maxwell Galley, Production Lead & Exhibition Designer
