Showing - Jeff Wall @ MoMA - NYC

Not so long ago, purely by chance, I fell into a Jeff Wall exhibition at Tate Modern. Now, I’ll be honest here, save one picture based on Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel, Invisible Man, which blew my mind (left; 'Invisible Man'), the show didn’t do it for me – not one bit, not a touch, not at all. It just left me cold. And that's kind of weird, and pretty embarrassing too, since Wall is generally considered to be one of the most innovative and adventurous photographers of his generation.

Moving on and this month, he’s showing at MoMA in New York. In that, I got busy, checking out his work once again. Well. I’m eating my words here, because and hands up, I got it wrong at Tate Modern. Wall’s work is superb. It's remarkable; and it’s remarkable because, by offering up seemingly standard images – a group of people walking down the street, a flooded grave, a sink soiled by filth – he’s suggesting that average isn’t average.These images are clever, they’re smart, not because Wall has the savvy to stick a massive light-box behind each photo illuminating every colour in sight – they’re clever because they capture a static moment before or after another moment, leaving you with the dark suggestion that something has or will happen. And as the viewer, you want to know, what’s going on, what's the story here? But of course, Wall doesn’t give an answer. And that, least for me, is precisely why the man is a bit of a genius.

Jeff Wall @ MoMA, Sixth Floor, 11 West 53 Street, NYC, 25th February – 14th May.