A Rare Opportunity to Experience Over 50 Iconic Works by One of Canada’s Most Influential Artists
Toronto, ON, October 21, 2025 – The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA) proudly unveils Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, a landmark exhibition showcasing more than 50 works by internationally celebrated Canadian artist Jeff Wall. This presentation marks Wall’s first exhibition in Toronto in 35 years, and his first in Canada in 27 years, standing as MOCA’s most ambitious undertaking to date. For the next five months (October 19, 2025–March 22, 2026), all three floors of the museum will be dedicated to the work and career of one of the most visionary artists of our time.
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.
The breadth of this presentation allows viewers to see the evolution of Wall’s formats and working methods—from documentary and “near-documentary” photographs to the ambitious production of his cinematographic pictures. His sustained engagement with the pictorial tableau, from transparencies in light boxes to an increasing number of black-and-white and colour prints, continues to expand the notion of photography
Among the 50 pictures sequenced throughout the museum, we come to understand what has remained constant in Jeff’s work: an engagement with the changing world around him and his prolonged observation of everyday life. His photographs reveal the complexities of contemporary life—its beauty, its pain, and the human effort to grapple with what it gives us. By blurring the boundaries of reality and fiction, and presenting his compositions on a remarkable scale, Wall invites viewers not only to observe his scenes but to inhabit them.
“As one of the first to develop this back-lit approach to his work, Wall introduced technical innovations that forever changed the history of photography,” says Kathleen S. Bartels, MOCA’s Executive Director and Exhibition Curator. “This exhibition is the culmination of my long working relationship with Jeff and it’s a point of both personal and professional pride to present his achievements with MOCA’s audiences here in Toronto and across Canada.”
On the occasion of this momentous exhibition at MOCA, Wall has produced an exclusive limited-edition portfolio of prints, Children (1988), featuring nine remarkable portraits. Only 20 sets will be available, each produced by Wall in his Vancouver studio. Complementing this release, a beautifully designed exhibition catalogue will also be available, offering insights into Wall’s practice and serving as a lasting companion to the exhibition.
Kelly Mark I Really
Also on as part of MOCA’s South Stairwell Sound Series is I Really by Sandrien featuring Kelly Mark. Mark was a Toronto-based conceptual artist whose diverse practice revealed the absurdity and poetry of mundane acts and daily rituals. I Really belongs to one of her most iterative works, reimagined across media since the late 1990s. The original piece, I Really Should, was a stream-of-consciousness list of tasks the artist had long contemplated—“pay back my student loan,” “drink more water,” “clean out the litter box.” In 2010, Amsterdam DJ and music producer Sandrien approached Mark to overlay the recording onto a techno track. This work now serves as an eccentric reminder of Mark—an artist who showed us, with openness and humour, how to take ourselves and what life offers just seriously enough.
This project is part of Everything and Nothing, a multi-site survey exhibition of work by the late Mark. Participating organizations include: Olga Korper Gallery, The Goldfarb Gallery, goodwater, Art Metropole, the plumb, Joys, Pumice Raft and Vtape.
This track is courtesy the artists, Intacto Records, and Vtape.
MOCA Launches Digital Guide on Bloomberg Connects
In conjunction with the opening of Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, MOCA is thrilled to launch a free digital guide on Bloomberg Connects. Featuring exclusive multimedia content and insights from artists and curators, the guide offers new ways to engage with MOCA and Wall’s work. Explore the exhibition at your own pace—at home or in the museum—with multilingual support through Google Translate. Download the free app or access the web version to discover more before your visit.
About Jeff Wall
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.
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 Ydessa 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 Prize in 2003, and the Audain Prize for the Visual Arts in 2008.
About MOCA Toronto
The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (MOCA) is a non-profit independent museum dedicated to fostering access to the arts in an inclusive cultural hub. The museum presents rotating exhibitions that prioritize twenty-first-century artistic production, primarily through commissioning of new work. Artists, partnerships, experimentation, and reciprocal initiatives are at the centre of MOCA’s mission as a locally rooted and internationally connected organization. Focused on core values promoting equity, inclusion and access, MOCA fosters active participation and engagement to serve as a welcoming gathering place in the hyper-diverse city of Toronto. MOCA offers unparalleled access to contemporary art, making it the ultimate art destination in the Greater Toronto Area. For more information on MOCA Toronto visit moca.ca.
2025 Support
Visionary Support for MOCA in 2025 is generously provided by Gilles and Julia Ouellette and The Price Family, with Visionary Corporate Support contributed by Castlepoint Numa.
Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023 is generously supported by Presenting Sponsor BMO, Leadership Supporter The Lind Family Foundation, and Lead Foundation Supporter The Audain Foundation.
We deeply appreciate the contributions to the exhibition by the Foundational Partners: Cheryl Atkinson and Donald Schmitt, Richard and Donna Ivey, the McAlpine Family, the Sabourin Family Foundation, The Jack Weinbaum Family Foundation, and White Cube, as well as an Anonymous donor.
MOCA is grateful for ongoing operating and project support from the City of Toronto, the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as generous contributions from public-sector funders, private donors, MOCA Members, sponsors and a network of cross-sectoral partners.
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Image Credits
- Jeff Wall, Actor in two roles, 2020. Two inkjet prints, Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, installation view, MOCA Toronto, 2025. Photo: LF Documentation. © Jeff Wall.
- Jeff Wall, Summer Afternoons, 2013. Two lightjet prints, Fallen rider, 2022. Inkjet print. Courtesy Gagosian. Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023, installation view, MOCA Toronto, 2025. Photo: LF Documentation. © Jeff Wall.
Media Contact
For additional information and images, please contact:
Lena Hesse, Director of Marketing
media@moca.ca