PACE/MACGILL GALLERY
William Wegman: Reading Two Books
January 23 – March 1, 2003
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Friday, 9:30 – 5:30, Saturday, 10 – 6
Pace/MacGill Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of William
Wegman: Reading Two Books, an exhibition of old and very new work.
The exhibition will feature Wegman's early conceptual photographs,
videos from the 1970s, 20 x 24 inch Polaroids of his world-famous
Weimaraners and recent black and white photographs.
A number of seminal works will hang in the exhibition, including
Family Combinations (1972), a deadpan, pre-Photoshop analysis of
identity based on similar portraits of Wegman, his mother and his
father. The sequence of six images morphs the family members' faces
and emphasizes their similar features, though in the end, the
combination of mother and father looks nothing like the original
image of son. In Cotto (1970), the artist's hand reaches for a slice
of salami and a pattern of small circles emerges. Inspired by a
chance event, this document of a trivial moment demonstrates a
fundamental aspect of his work: Wegman consistently embraces what is
mundane and leads us to discover meaning and humor in our routine
tasks and activities.
A self-described "tech-sensitive artist" who revels in the
limitations of the medium, Wegman took a nonchalant, minimalist
approach when he began making short, closed circuit video pieces. He
focused on themes of identity and perception, but did it with a
playfulness that set him apart from his contemporaries – the banal
and pedestrian become significant and funny in the hands of Wegman.
His generous wit and engaging sense of illusion result in such
unforgettable moving images as Singing Stomach (1972). Again, Wegman
encourages us to explore life's minor oddities.
In the early 1970s, Wegman began to collaborate with his Weimaraner
Man Ray, who proved himself a natural performer when one day allowed
on the film set. Wegman went on to photograph Man Ray (and later
continued . . .
32 EAST 57TH ST NEW YORK NY 10022 / PHONE 212.759.7999 / FAX 212.759.8964 / EMAIL info@pacemacgill.com
his second dog, Fay, and in time, her offspring) with the Polaroid
20 x 24, finding novelty in the aesthetic and narrative concerns
that are inherent in the format. As both single and multi-panel
works, the life-size portraits involve role-play and outright
riotous humor, while simultaneously presenting a rigorous
examination of formal concerns. In a sophisticated new series of
black and white photographs, the playful dogs become amorphous
shapes behind a screen. We contemplate them as forms in pictorial
space, but all the while their canine identity remains clear.
William Wegman is recognized as a pioneer in conceptual art, performance, video and photography. He has exhibited extensively
throughout the United States and Europe. A major monograph of his
work, William Wegman Polaroids, was published by Harry Abrams in 2002.
32 EAST 57TH ST NEW YORK NY 10022 / PHONE 212.759.7999 / FAX 212.759.8964 / EMAIL info@pacemacgill.com