The exhibit Dressed and Undressed is a two-floor gallery of photos from a photographer named William Wegman. The room is a huge white room with pictures spaced out evenly across both sides of the room. He uses a twenty-four by twenty color polaroid images. All the images involve his dogs in several different sceneries and positions. What’s interesting about this work is that how he uses slight props that he adds to the dog to make it look like something it’s not. In addition to this, this exhibit was his artwork that he created for 30 years and first time in his sixth solo exhibition at the gallery.
Each photo in the gallery contains features that makes each one stand out, such as poses and outfits, the background, and even what the dogs themselves are wearing. For example, some dogs were seen wearing hats and wigs or a dress. To add, the artist Wegman has an upcoming book named Being Human. “A dog does not need to be dressed up to appear to have human qualities. I made little to no effort to anthropomorphize Man Ray and yet he is clearly my counterpart in the work. I think that is how we are wired, to see ourselves.” In the polaroid’s most of the dogs are in human poses or clothing. I think this exhibit was more based around humans because the dogs dressed like a human. He wanted to capture these dogs in the images portrayed, to show them imitating humans.
I noticed in all the photos the artist signed and dated at the bottom. The polaroid’s have some wavy edges that give a feeling of the photo and it’s a content. The photo that caught my interest was the piece called Lawn Sculpture. It was in color Polaroid picture that was separated panels, each was 24×20 inches and 35×49 inches in frame. This picture stuck out to me because of the way they are positioning was. It is two halves’, with each side having a dog and a house in the background. Combined, it makes for an image of two dogs sitting in front of a backdrop of a house. This also caught my eyes because even though they are two different pictures visually they give you the same effect
You selected a good quote. It gets at the heart of Wegman’s work. He doesn’t have to do much to the dogs before we start thinking of them as human. Generally, its good to note where the quote is from. Because you mention the book in the sentence before, I think the quote must be from the book or maybe about the book?
In Lawn Sculpture, why do you think there are two halves? I think it is so that the two dogs look identical like factory produced lawn sculpture. Not like real dogs, which of course they are. The piece is pretty funny.