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Watching similar images of the devastations in New York City of September 11, 2001 being repeated over and over on TV paintings like 'Chemical Dump', 'Migratory Architecture', 'Fighters' or 'Irrrigation' that Bill Wegman did in 1988/1989 came to mind. Dark colours, irritating shadows of bright colour, clouds of dust, birds, planes, small human figures somewhere in infinite spaces...
To the public at large William Wegman is the artist with the Dog, showing Polaroids with incredibly beautiful surfaces. But beneath the opulence and pictorial quality the moralist is also around, for whom the inscrutable animal – first the dog Man Ray, later Fay and her puppies – is the 'It' of our world, which we can admire, hate or love but never really understand. Of his generation, however, Wegman is a superb artist with a conceptual understanding of art, and from the beginning he never made himself dependent on theories, he never had and until today never has had scruples about giving an impression of naïvity, silliness, and a compromisingly consistent banality. This was his attitude at the beginning of the seventies, when he was working primarily with black-and-white photography, video and drawings. Misunderstandings were common, because the mundane triviality often overshadowed the ironic and cynical wit if it was not connected to an art context.
Wegman mixed the tautological approach of Conceptual Art with his Every-Day-Experience. He acted as if he didn't even know what kind of statement he wanted to make. At the same time this kind of artistic thinking builds a wonderful bridge to the young contemporary artists' community all over the world. Today one can often hear statements like: “This kind of work we saw already in the seventies, these young people have no knowledge of art history” etc... but to feel and to see and to learn about the big difference, you can, for example, compare Wegman's 'Reel 1' (1970-71) to 'Reel 9' (1999). During the last 25 years (since the oil crisis in 1973) our view and understanding of the world and society has changed so much, the thinking process, the understanding of space, time and the human body.
Wegman has a strong connection with the 'Every Day' or as Peter Schjedahl wrote in 1990: "The subject matter is the whole, wide world as it lodges in the imaginations of the children that none of us ever cease to be. Wegman has been reborn as a sort of American, cybernetic-age, Protestant Chagall, whose lost and constantly recovered Vitebsk is the planet Earth." This connection transforms works like 'Reel 9' into a kind of wonderful instrument to understand serious and complicated issues with a little smile that only human beings can show. There is no need to roar with laughter. Wegman's work shows his affinity with European roots, with Duchamp, but also with Sigmar Polke and several Dutch artists. Wegman plays between European and American art metaphors, a wonderful lifetime occupation.
– Marianne Eigenheer
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With William Wegman, Jen Allison, Andrea Beeman, Jason Burch, Julie Hindley, Sarah Sockit, production Andrea Beeman, Jason Burch, Marilys Ernst, editing Steve Silkensen online facility DMZ, NYC
William Wegman ° 1943 Hoyoke, Mass, USA
Lives and works in New York City, USA
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