Jeff Wall - Overpass
2001

"Evaluation of quality is the core of the pleasure of the experience of art; the simultaneous pleasure of enjoying something intensely and of recognising that it is a good work. I always judge my pictures - daily, hourly, all the time. Even though it's disappointing to have to say "that one is not good", or "not as good as that one", it is still a pleasure to go through that process and experience a work afresh. Nothing has been as destructive to the condition of art as the idea that qualitative judgment is unimportant, and that art is important for cultural reasons. Art can only be important if it is good, because if it is good, it pleases us in ways we don't anticipate and don't understand, and that pleasure means something to us even if we can't specify what, exactly."

"If you are capable of making good pictures it’s immoral not to do so..."

-J.W.