This gigantic photographic image is based on Hokusai's woodcut 'A Strong Gust of Wind at Ejiri' from circa 1831. Hokusai's woodcut is set in the typhoon season in Japan and depicts travellers struggling to hold on to their hats and other possessions in a raging gale. Jeff Wall has transplanted the scene to the landscape around Vancouver and shows a group of figures caught off-guard by a sudden gust. The work is constructed from parts of more than fifty images shot over a year, which were then scanned and digitally processed. The result took so long to assemble that Wall himself likened the procedure to cinematography than photography.

Provenance

The artist, through Galerie Roger Pailhas.