William Wegman gifts his entire short video catalogue to the Met
An excerpt of Spelling Lesson, 1974, by William Wegman. Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art
The stately Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is now home to 174 short videos gifted by William Wegman. They’re contextualised in an exhibition, ‘Before/On/After’, which includes works and ephemera from his confederates in the California Conceptual movement; but it was after an appearance on David Letterman’s late night show in 1982 that Wegman’s sly, renegade practice first took hold in the wider, popular consciousness.
Wegman recounted the origin of Spelling Lesson, a 1974 low-tech video he made with Man Ray, his first beloved Weimaraner, which he named for the legendary surrealist. He had been teaching conceptual art at the University of Illinois and had purloined a video camera that had been used to record lectures. After moving to California in 1970, he says, ‘I was doing floor pieces and the dog was a total pest, impossible dog, and I’d be taping something on the floor, and there he was, but he looked great, a lot better than the bits of cheese or nails I was conceptually placing in the corner, and he was grey, that seemed to suit black and white video very well.’
Before/On/After (detail), 1972, by William Wegman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2016. © William Wegman.
The idea for this particular droll video – actually recorded after he left Long Beach for New York – began on a drive in Syracuse with Man Ray. Wegman was looking for Walnut Street, saying the names of each street they passed out loud. When they came to Beech, Man Ray, a California dog who loved the beach, ‘went bonkers’. The slacker humour of the dog receiving spelling corrections from Wegman as they sit formally together at a table becomes a gentle lesson in how to deal with failure.
In his three years in California – 1970-1973 – Wegman became part of a group that also included Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Vija Celmins and Allen Ruppersberg, all of whom were poking holes in the stuffier, more academic, East Coast version of conceptualism by using paint, video and photography in ironic ways that turned didactic formalism on its head. In Wegman’s case, ‘putting on the dog’ turned out to be the very opposite of stuffy and pretentious, and contravened a scene in New York that he says ‘nearly did [him] in’.
Yet it is Wegman and his revolving cast of Weimaraners who have taken the journey from lo-fi Long Beach to international celebrity, completing a decidedly unforeseen Hollywood trajectory that belies their humble origins. The exhibition at the Met, of his work and that of his fellow travellers, makes for a cheerful New Year’s antidote to the more challenging news from around the world.
INFORMATION
‘Before/On/After: William Wegman and California Conceptualism’ is on view until 15 July. For more information, visit the William Wegman website and the Metropolitan Museum of Art website
ADDRESS
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
The Met Fifth Avenue
1000 5th Avenue
New York
-
Singapore bar and lounge Baia revives the opulence of Ancient Rome
Daven Wu samples Baia’s bacchanalian cocktails and louche slouching spots that are drawing the crowds in Singapore
By Daven Wu Published
-
AI in architecture: Zaha Hadid Architects on its pioneering use and collaborating with NVIDIA
We talk to ZHA about AI in architecture, its computational design advances, and its collaboration with NVIDIA on design, data and the future of AI and creativity
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Sculptor James Cherry’s always playful and sometimes strange lamps set New York's Tiwa Gallery aglow
‘It was simultaneously extremely isolating and so refreshing’: Los Angeles-based sculptor James Cherry on brainstorming ‘From Pollen’ at New York’s Tiwa Gallery
By Diana Budds Published
-
Inside Luna Luna: the amusement park designed by artists lands in New York
‘Luna Luna: Forgotten Fantasy’ – featuring rides by Basquiat, Lichtenstein, Hockney, Haring, and Dalí – has opened at The Shed
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Henni Alftan’s paintings frame everyday moments in cinematic renditions
Concurrent exhibitions in New York and Shanghai celebrate the mesmerising mystery in Henni Alftan’s paintings
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next Door
The Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
By Anne Soward Published
-
'There’s an anxiety under all of it': Violet Dennison in New York
Violet Dennison debuts abstract paintings with new show 'Damaged Self' at Tara Downs Gallery
By Mary Cleary Published
-
‘Gas Tank City’, a new monograph by Andrew Holmes, is a photorealist eye on the American West
‘Gas Tank City’ chronicles the artist’s journey across truck-stop America, creating meticulous drawings of fleeting moments
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Mark Armijo McKnight’s bodily landscapes capture the tactile serenity of the American West
The artist’s new exhibition at the Whitney Museum, which is organised by the museum curator Drew Sawyer, offers a succinct window into his contemplative suggestion of queering a landscape
By Osman Can Yerebakan Published
-
Dark, glamorous and hedonistic: a photography book captures New York in the 1990s
New York: High Life, Low Life, by Dafydd Jones, goes behind the scenes of New York society
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Derrick Alexis Coard’s portraits are a sensitive, positive testimony to Black men
The late artist Derrick Alexis Coard’s retrospective ‘I Am That I Am’, at New York’s Salon 94, honours his ‘symbolic expression for possible change for the African-American male community’
By Tianna Williams Published