Jeff Wall's reputation for vast scale, high prices and intriguing narrative scenes ranks alongside those of the American and German photographers, Gregory Crewdson and Andreas Gursky. All three recently revealed new departures in their work, and in this new exhibition the famed scale of Wall's photographs is reduced and the results surprising - but somehow disappointing.
The main gallery features two scenes from Sicilian hillsides, each carrying different palettes and textures and suggestively abstract. Dark clumps of weeds clinging to dizzying diagonal slopes contrast in mood with glowing terraces splattered with green foliage and sculptural trees engaging with the shapes of electricity pylons. The Sicilian Ossuary is the surprise here: a lichen-clad tombstone carved with a Turin shroud, it shelters snails and with the disintegrating surroundings introduces a surprising romanticism.
The second gallery containing smaller photographs reverts to Wall's narrative tableaux productions, but their detachment drains previous cinematic joy. Boxing sees two teenage boys sparring unconvincingly in a tasteful living room set where the artwork symbolises taste and status and makes too obvious a point. Boy falls from tree heralds a major accident - avoided by digitisation. Set in a suburban garden, it evokes Crewdson's domestic vignettes and tensions.
Most interesting among the narratives is the four-part documentary sequence which unfolds the story of a German costume historian studying a 1930s shirt, the owner's suitcases and catalogues selling shirts. Breaking with Wall's famed digital "stitching" of elements into one large scene, it still retains the mystery and artifice. In contrast, the Canadian history lecturer with his deadpan model is purposely deadened by the flat lighting.
In among this range of works, previous joy may have been somewhat drained but curiosity remains. And beauty is present in the quietness of the decaying Ossuary.
To January 7. whitecube.com, 020 7930 5373
Jeff Wall
White Cube Mason's Yard, SW1
