A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai): from After to Before the Photograph

Abstract

When I was invited to participate in the Tate Modern symposium ‘Jeff Wall: Six Works’, I chose to discuss A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai) without hesitation (Fig. 14). Among the many Jeff Wall works that I have come to admire, not only was this one the first I saw, but that first encounter also had an immediate influence on my thinking about technology and aesthetics. I would like to weave together an account of that encounter with some further thoughts about the photograph's place within Wall's work of that period.