[Henry Chang]

Henry Chang – William Wegment “Dressed and Undressed” Essay

William Wegman’s exhibit “Dressed and Undressed” is an exhibit featuring his pet dog in various hilarious and mind-twisting poses and scenarios. The entire exhibit was in the 3rd and 4th floors of the building. The rooms of the exhibits were just a quadrilateral white walled room with concealed doors that had nothing to do with the exhibit. One floor had a small office in it behind sliding glass doors with one of the photos in it. It was strangely something out of what we’d expect. The computer on its desk was on too. The photos were placed behind glass in frames. All of them had the creator’s pet in them. Some of them are dressed up in human clothes, resulting in many appearances. Some of them looked normal, especially ones where the dog or dogs were upright. There were ones where they looked comedic, as one of them fit its legs through the bottom of a shirt and its head through the sleeve. The rest were just close up details of the dogs. It appears that the exhibit had a multitude of subjects.

The photographs of the dogs were very straightforward profile shots of at least something. I feel like this exhibit primarily focused on the dogs doing human things. A lot of the photos displayed a whole dog’s head rather than just a part of it, probably because I think it wanted to keep a whole focus on the dog itself. There were dogs doing various things aside from the ones simply standing still. A noticeable photo was one display of a dog in a flannel shirt that was sitting on a stool. It looked very sophisticated but silly. There were also photos of close up of the dog’s fur on various places. Some of them were on takes on the dog’s legs or back or so. I am inclined to say that it’s more in favor of the dogs. Had these been just people it wouldn’t be so bizarre or maybe funny. Many of these images wouldn’t work with humans anyway, such as the ones with the dogs totally inside a shirt.

One photograph I really liked was ‘Daisy Nut Cake’. I think it’s trying to imply a cross between a weird person and just a dog. The dog was dressed up in weird ornaments, such as a hat with fruit on it, and a slinky toy on an eye, and a giant fake toy eye in the other. On its ears it had daisy flowers and on its mouth, leaves and I think a large nut. The entire composition makes for a comedic outburst compared to the stillness of the rest of the exhibit. I thought the image was less structured than most that I saw. The creativity on it makes it very saturated and is a nice show of imagination with humor. Possibly, the photo could be a representation of an original character that the artist made up for fun. The dog was more well dressed than the others.