Jeff Wall's Mimic appears to be a documentary photograph. A tough man walks down the street, girlfriend in tow, and exchanges threatening glances with a passer-by. In Vancouver in 1982, when the picture was taken, it may have been more blindingly obvious that (as Wall relates it) the man's reflexive gesture constituted racial abuse. Mimicry: a white trash white man mimics an Asian man's eyes, repeating a gesture that lingers in the culture. But the picture is more dynamic than any interpretation can suggest. The men's eyes have just ceased to meet, everybody is in motion, the empty street behind sinks away, the street sign points off in a different direction. The striking thing about the picture is not the message you choose to think it carries, but the arrested drama of a momentary charged encounter in a blank urban landscape.

LRB 15 December 2005 | PDF Download