About

Ian Wallace, Intersection NYC (July 31, 2004) II ⏤ detail, 2004

Ian Wallace
In the Street

February 7 – March 9, 2025

Ian Wallace (b. 1943 Shoreham, England) is a central figure in the development of conceptual art in Vancouver, a movement that has garnered international recognition since the early 1970s. Alongside artists such as Rodney Graham, Ken Lum and Jeff Wall, he has played a formative role in shaping the city’s distinctive approach to photo-conceptualism. His career began in the mid 1960s when he accepted a professorship at the University of British Columbia, where he would go on to influence a generation of artists, including Jeff Wall. Balancing his academic career with his artistic practice, Wallace continued to teach until the late 1990s while simultaneously refining a visual language that integrates the formalism of monochrome painting with the indexicality of documentary photography. His sustained engagement with avant-garde strategies, particularly those emerging from modernist and conceptual traditions, underscores his critical contribution to the contemporary art discourse.

Ian Wallace’s In the Street series (1988–1989) represents a pivotal development in his sustained engagement with the visual, social, and theoretical dimensions of urban space. As a key figure in the development of photo-conceptualism in Canada, Wallace has consistently examined the intersection of painting and photography, bringing theoretical strategies to bear on questions of representation, spectatorship, and modernity. This series extends and refines the critical concerns first articulated in earlier works such as the Poverty series (early 1980s), while also marking an important moment of international recognition with Wallace’s first solo exhibition with Greta Meert in Brussels in 1989, ushering in the gallery’s second year.

In the Street (Brussels series)

1988

photolaminate with acrylic and ink monoprint on canvas 152 x 213 cm Ref. 3378

In the street (St. Etienne series)

1989

photolaminate with acrylic and ink monoprint on canvas 242 x 242 cm Ref. 0819

Installation view, Galerie Greta Meert, 1989

This period also marks Wallace’s deepening engagement with European urban space, particularly in relation to his first exhibition at Galerie Greta Meert, where he presented the Brussels Series (1989). Whereas this series responded to the layered historical and architectural character of the European city, In the Street takes a broader, more universal approach to the urban environment, treating the street as an archetypal site of modern experience. By juxtaposing moments of quotidian life with abstract painted elements, Wallace produces a dialectic between realism and formalism, documentary and abstraction, an approach that aligns his work with both modernist strategies and conceptualist critiques of representation.

In the Street (Brussels series)

1988

photolaminate with acrylic and ink monoprint on canvas 242 x 242 cm Ref. 0825

Study for In the Street (St. Etienne series)

1989

color photocopy and ink on paper 34,2 x 33,9 cm Ref. 4666

Ian Wallace, In the Street (Brussels series) ⏤ detail, 1988

Wallace’s Poverty series foregrounded issues of economic marginalisation and social visibility, depicting figures on the periphery of urban society and interrogating how poverty is framed within the public sphere. By contrast, In the Street shifts its focus toward the structures of urban movement and the phenomenology of public space, capturing pedestrians in transit through intersections, sidewalks, and city thoroughfares. In doing so, Wallace engages with a set of concerns central to modernist and postmodernist discourse — the street as a space of circulation, performance, and contested meaning. His method, combining documentary-style street photography with ink monoprints and painted panels challenges conventional modes of representation, disrupting the authority of the photographic image and emphasising the constructed nature of perception.

Poverty (With Brown)

1989

photolaminate and acrylic on canvas 163 x 112 cm Ref. 0529

Poverty (With Blue)

1988

photolaminate and acrylic on canvas 162 x 112 cm Ref. 0528

If Poverty made visible the economic inequalities embedded within the urban landscape, In the Street expands this inquiry to consider the broader conditions of urban movement, regulation, and anonymity. While Poverty focused on sidelined figures, often isolated or positioned at the edges of the pictorial frame, In the Street shifts attention to the transient, unremarkable flow of pedestrians — individuals who, though not overtly marked by economic hardship, are nonetheless subject to the rhythms, structures, and imperatives of the modern city. The transition from overt social critique to a more formal and spatial investigation does not signal a departure from Wallace’s earlier concerns but rather an evolution in his approach. This part of the cityscape remains a space where power, agency, and control intersect, though now examined through a lens that considers abstraction and pictorial structure as integral to understanding social relations.

Installation view, OVR Galerie Greta Meert, 2025

Intersection NYC (July 31, 2004) II

2004

photolaminate and acrylic on canvas 152 x 152 cm Ref. 0972

The Conundrum II (Zim Zum with Group)

2009

photolaminate with acrylic on canvas 183 x 183 cm Ref. 2251

Wallace refines his investigation into the street as a site of aesthetic, social, and theoretical inquiry. The series exemplifies his ongoing interrogation of the image as a constructed and mediated form, reinforcing his role as a critical figure in contemporary art. Situated between his earlier sociopolitical engagements and the formalist abstractions of his later work, this series encapsulates Wallace’s nuanced approach to modernity, photography, and the conditions of urban life.

Exhibition view, Ian Wallace, Galerie Greta Meert, 2017

The monochrome occupies a central and enduring position within Ian Wallace’s artistic practice, serving as both a critical engagement with modernist painting and a conceptual device that interrogates the conditions of visual representation. First introduced into his work between 1967 and 1969 (and revisited in 2007), the monochrome was well established as the cipher for the crisis of late modernist painting, embodying both the culmination of modernist reductionism and the limits of painterly expression. Unlike the monochrome’s historical lineage in suprematism, constructivism, or American color-field painting, where it often signified transcendence or the pursuit of pure form, Wallace mobilises the monochrome as an index of conceptual thought, staging a dialogue between the autonomy of painting and the contingencies of photographic representation.

Untitled (Red Monochrome with Grey)

1967-2009

acrylic on canvas 228,6 x 50,8 cm Ref. 2271

Emerging at a time when modernist painting was undergoing profound theoretical scrutiny, Wallace’s early engagement with the monochrome can be understood as a response to the legacy of formalist abstraction and its perceived exhaustion. By integrating monochrome fields within his photographic tableaux, he disrupts the presumed neutrality of both mediums, foregrounding the tensions between visual presence and conceptual absence, materiality and referentiality. The monochrome, in this context, is not merely a reduction to the purely optical but an assertion of what Wallace has described as “the objectification of pure presence”, a gesture that simultaneously acknowledges the historical weight of modernist painting while destabilising its claims to self-sufficiency.

Untitled (Yellow Monochrome with Black)

1967-2008

acrylic on canvas 228,6 x 50,8 cm Ref. 2275

Ian Wallace, Abstract Composition (with Pollock Number 21), 2012 ⎯ detail

Ian Wallace’s Abstract Composition series, scrutinising the institutional and philosophical dimensions of art, attests his commitments to aesthetics of modernism, and to critical theorist Theodor Adorno, whose work Aesthetic Theory occupies a central place in both the artist’s personal library and thought. Literal or evoked imagery of the museum resonates as both physical and conceptual space throughout his oeuvre, situating it within a dialogue on the role of institutions in shaping cultural meaning and value.

Abstract Composition (with Onement)

2011

photolaminate with acrylic on canvas 91 x 61 cm Ref. 4529

Abstract Composition (with Pollock Number 21)

2012

photolaminate with acrylic on canvas 91 x 61 cm Ref. 4532

The Abstract Composition series exemplifies Wallace’s signature approach of combining photographic elements with abstract painting, taking and decontextualising images of museum – interiors, artworks, or archival materials – underlining a tension between representation and autonomy, and invites viewers to question the authority of this institution in its roles of mediating the visual experience and defining artistic value.

Abstract Composition (with Kiefer)

2012

photolaminate with acrylic on canvas 91 x 61 cm Ref. 2243

Wallace’s engagement with the ideological power of the museum can be traced back to his earlier works. The Idea of the University (1990) explored the parallels between educational and artistic institutions. The Abstract Composition series’ use of the formal language of abstraction challenges distinctions between high art and everyday life. The recurring visual structuring use of the grid also serves as metaphor for the institutional frameworks that govern artistic practice, evoking Adorno’s conception of art as a site of resistance to the homogenising forces of culture.

Abstract Composition (with Early Malevich)

2011

photolaminate and acrylic on canvas 152 x 122 cm Ref. 4537

The artist’s sustained engagement with critical theory, particularly the Frankfurt School’s critique of modernity and its impact on culture, is a crucial lens through which to understand his work – Adorno’s assertion that art must resist commodification and retain its autonomy whilst engaging with the social world resonates deeply. In the Abstract Composition series, this tension is manifested in the interplay between the photographic and the painterly, the representational and the abstract, and the institutional and the personal.

Wallaces work challenges the hierarchies and ideologies that underpin the art world, implicitly affirming the potential of art to critique and transform society. Through his innovative use of form and his intellectual rigour, Wallace continues to push the boundaries of contemporary art, offering a compelling vision of art’s role in the modern world.

Exhibition view, Ian Wallace ⏤ In the Museum, Galerie Greta Meert, 2022

Ian Wallace’s institutional significance is firmly established through both his extensive museum presence and a series of prestigious accolades, reflecting his profound impact on contemporary art. Over the decades, Wallace’s work has been prominently featured in major exhibitions at leading institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Tate Modern in London, and the National Gallery of Canada, solidifying his role as a central figure in the global art discourse. His integration of photography and painting, alongside his critical engagement with urban and institutional spaces, has made his work a cornerstone of conceptual art.

Wallace was granted in 2004 with the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Canada’s highest honour for artistic achievement. In December 2012 he was appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada, the nation’s second-highest merit tribute, underscoring his enduring influence on Canadian cultural discourse. In 2014, his international stature was affirmed with the title of Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture, highlighting his global contributions to art, literature and critical theory. Finally, in 2016, his induction into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts cemented his legacy as a transformative figure in the visual arts.

Wallace’s influence is evident not only in his own body of work but also in his contributions as an educator, writer, and intellectual, shaping generations of artists and thinkers. His theoretical grounding, particularly in relation to critical theory and modernist aesthetics, continues to inform contemporary discussions on the role of the image, the institution, and the function of art in society. As a result, his work remains a touchstone for critical reflection, bridging historical inquiry with ongoing explorations of visual culture in the 21st century.