Nicole Harripersad
Prof. Robin Michaels
COMD 2330
October 11, 2017
The exhibit show of Dressed and Undressed that William Wegman was displaying at the Sperone Westwater recently was the photograph of his dogs’ as portraits or also known as “Puppy Portraits”, in my point of view.
When I researched more about William Wegman, I found out that he used to feature his dogs live on sesame street when I was 4 years old.
His work was featured on the third and fourth floor, with all of his amazing dog portraits. The amazing part about his work is that he didn’t require to work with photoshop or any other editing software. Instead, he uses a 20×24 Polaroid camera, an instant camera which uses self-developing film to create a developed print shortly after taking the picture. A polaroid also means no retouching or editing the photo which is brilliant. If a person were to see this without knowing whom the artist was, they would automatically assume his work would be photoshop, which it isn’t.
Wegman’s purpose of his work was to capture someone or something that is imaging and imitating a way to show that dogs are human too, that dogs can also dress up as a human these are reasons to overturn others expectations of what it really means to be human.
William Wegman uses his dogs for his masterpieces and to capture the nature of transformation from a dog to a human being. By giving his dogs clothes to wear, whether it is a hat, wigs, or any other accessories to show a humanistic.
One photo that I found very interesting in the exhibit was called: Shar Pei, it was an color Polaroid picture and it was his dog covered in a bunch of fur coats. But the way his dog was wrapped up in the fur coat made it very unique. He shaped the coat and made his dog, look like a completely different breed. From a chocolate lab to a “Shar-Pei”. I found it very cute because shar-peis are very cute dogs with layers and layers of rolls on their bodies. I thought Wegman did an excellent job in this piece by turning his dog into a new breed buy just using furry coats
Its great that you realize how well circulated Wegman’s images are that they were even on Sesame Street. And you make a really important point that these are not manipulated images. The photo you selected to focus on is a bit different than many in the exhibit. Here Wegman’s dog is dressed up in a coat so is using a piece of clothing to look like another breed. It still anthropomorphic but in a slyer way.