After "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue

After "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison, the Prologue - Jeff Wall (Canadian, born 1946)

Jeff Wall based this elaborately staged photograph on the prologue of Ralph Ellison’s celebrated 1952 novel, Invisible Man. The novel’s protagonist, an unnamed African American man, relates that he lives secretly “in my hole in the basement,” where he has “wired the entire ceiling, every inch of it” with 1,369 lights powered by illegally siphoned off electricity. In addition to the prologue, Wall drew from ot...