Dead Troops Talk

Jeff Wall created the photograph Dead Troops Talk (A Vision After an Ambush of a Red Army Patrol near Moqor, Afghanistan, Winter 1986) in 1992. Its dimensions are 229.2 by 417.2 cm.

This photograph is a sample of one of Wall's complicated productions, which includes cast, sets, crews, and digital postproduction. The staged shot represents the aftermath of a fake Mujahideen attack on a Soviet Army patrol near Mogor during the Soviet-Afghan War in the winter of 1986. The setting is a desolate desert. The thirteen Soviet soldiers are seen rising from the dead, their wounds and limbs still apparent from the horrific strike. They act strangely; for example, one of them reveals his scars to another. Three of the Mujahideen who killed them are pictured at the site, one studying the contents of a bag and the legs of two others shown with the dead troops' gathered rifles and ammunition.

Wall was influenced by war photography as well as 19th-century painting by artists such as Francisco Goya, namely the print series The Disasters of War, Antoine Gros, Théodore Géricault, and Édouard Castres' panorama of the French withdrawal during the Franco-Prussian War. The picture was made over a six-year period on a set in a makeshift studio in Burnaby, British Columbia. Wall designed all of the composition's intricacies, such as the soldiers' placement on the scene, their clothing, and their wounds.

As of 2020, the painting is Wall's most valuable, having sold for $3,666,500 at Christie's in New York on May 8, 2012. A copy of this photograph is on display at The Broad in Los Angeles.

Artist: Jeff Wall

Price: $3.7 million