The 2002 Hasselblad Award in Photography has been presented to Canadian Photographer Jeff Wall - Notes from the Field - Brief Article

Afterimage, Winter, 2002

The 2002 Hasselblad Award In Photography has been presented to Canadian Photographer Jeff Wall. Trained as an art historian and known for his expansive light boxes of staged scenes, Wall's works have been exhibited for over 30 years in such venues as Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of Art and el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

The Hasselblad Award is granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements." Wall's achievements were stated by the judges as "using photography in a very innovative way which has helped establish for the medium a major place in contemporary art ... and truly make of him, in the words of Charles Baudelaire, 'a painter of modern life.'" Previous winners of the Hasselblad Award include Ansel Adams (1981), Henri Cartier-Bresson (1982), Manuel Alvarez Bravo (1984), Hiroshi Hamaya (1987), Sebastiao Salgado (1989), Richard Avedon (1991), Cindy Sherman (1999) and Hiroshi Sugimoto (2001). An exhibit of Wall's work will be on display at Hasselblad Center, Goteborg Museum of Art through January 6, 2003. For further information, visit www.hasselblad foundation.org