William Wegman's Dogs-Men
Posted on December 10 2019
Author Andrea Giardina
Translated by Jennifer Cooper
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MASI Lugano │8th September 2019 - 6th January 2020
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They are human, they are like us. The path of William Wegman reflects (and anticipates) what has happened in the sapiens-dog relationship in the last forty years. Dogs have entered homes, abandoned the role of subalternes and have become peers. We comb them, dress them, pamper them, look after them like our eternal children. They can always stay with us, every barrier has fallen. They sleep with us, slipped in between our legs. I look at Wegman's dogs. There are 200 photos on display at the MASI in Lugano, I see them for the first time, but they tell me that for the Americans these are generational images, which appeared a bit everywhere, from calendars to advertisements.
In short, these are images with which we grew up as children in the 1970s. Mostly Polaroid, beautiful, that you cannot look at. Because in that image there is something that has happened, something that we did to them and that they let themselves be done. Dogs are among the most fascinating that one can imagine,like the very elegant gray Weimaraner with piercing blue eyes. Wegman started photographing them when the first one, Man Ray, came into his house, it was against his will, his wife wanted the dog. Well, William Ewing explains, curator of the exhibition (and of the 2017 book), from that moment the Weimaraners become Wegman's muse. At the muse is attributed an action towards the poet, it helps him to compose, to overcome the stormy sea of creation. What do Muses actually do? Do they sleep into the heads of poets as an idea among ideas? Or are they the victims and the alibis and the false doubles of the restless souls?
In short, these are images with which we grew up as children in the 1970s. Mostly Polaroid, beautiful, that you cannot look at. Because in that image there is something that has happened, something that we did to them and that they let themselves be done. Dogs are among the most fascinating that one can imagine,like the very elegant gray Weimaraner with piercing blue eyes. Wegman started photographing them when the first one, Man Ray, came into his house, it was against his will, his wife wanted the dog. Well, William Ewing explains, curator of the exhibition (and of the 2017 book), from that moment the Weimaraners become Wegman's muse. At the muse is attributed an action towards the poet, it helps him to compose, to overcome the stormy sea of creation. What do Muses actually do? Do they sleep into the heads of poets as an idea among ideas? Or are they the victims and the alibis and the false doubles of the restless souls?
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William Wegman, Farm Boy, 1996 / On Base, 2007. Courtesy of the artist
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Is the muse inert or active? In other words: is Wegman who built those human dogs, making them become humans? Or are they, earnestly playful, impassively available to do anything, immune from the sense of ridiculous, to have forced him to play this roles exchange ? We have invented this turn where the dogs became us completely because we are atomized, childless, selfish, overprotective, or suggested by our companions, life lasting friends of man, who have never learned how, in these decades to interpret our incurable emptiness? But what a stupid thing this is, the rationalist would say. What does the will of the dog have to do with it. The dog is a matter in the hands of the artist who makes him do the part that he, the author wants, as it is in the hands of the "owner" who disguises it as a dandy, who arranges it in the stroller, which puts the coat on him , who finds delicious baby food and, inevitably, dedicates sweet words posting his image on the relevant social media. Yet, looking at Wegman the reasoning for absurd that his dogs - and then all the dogs - have contributed in first person (never as in this case the word is centered) to build something with us seems to me evident. Therefore, we would be inside the turning point. Could we be(I continue to use the conditional tense that can only allow me to stay here among us, not to lose myself permanently) just going inside the strange Story of the “dogman” (to say it with the neologism coined some years ago by Asor Rosa)?
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William Wegman, George, 1997, Polaroid / Casual, 2002, Polaroid. Courtesy of the artist
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Wegman's dogs seem to be able to do anything. They can be the melancholy disguise of "Masquerade", the alienating misdirection of "Hallucinations", the casual pose of "Vogue", the disturbing counter game of "Zoo", the disturbing effect of "Nudes". They mix nature, play with our clothes and with our eyes, they can become a quotation of works of art (Constructivism) and contortionists posing among objects or stants from characters in history. Nothing seems impossible to them.
This extraordinary malleability of the dog, this taking on the shape we want, is the most lasting effect of the photographs of the American artist. Looking at them, one can sometimes guess how deep the encounter between species has become, how each humanism is anachronistic, how it has become impossible to try to understand something about us without them.
This extraordinary malleability of the dog, this taking on the shape we want, is the most lasting effect of the photographs of the American artist. Looking at them, one can sometimes guess how deep the encounter between species has become, how each humanism is anachronistic, how it has become impossible to try to understand something about us without them.
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William Wegman, Qey, 2017 / Walker Evans, 2017. Courtesy of the artist
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I Look at "Casual", photo from 2002 that was chosen as the poster of the exhibition. The Weimaraner's head is slightly tilted towards his right, the look expresses an easy, friendly attention. A being in the world without too many thoughts. The same idea that comes from the arms that run along the body to slip into your pocket. They are empty arms, which simulate human limbs. But, although there is no such thing, they are read as signs of lowering of the guard, of surrender satisfied at the different pace of a non-working day. Red necklace and trousers of the same color match the knit and suggest sensations of afternoon extravagance, elegant extemporaneous solutions of a country gentleman.
I try to think of a human head instead of a dog's. I can't make it fit, for nothing. It is as if for that body the only possibility was to have that brown muzzle from melancholy bracco. And it seems to me that this is the definitive departure from the alleged superiority of our species. Only a dog can be on that body. The "dogman", in fact.
I try to think of a human head instead of a dog's. I can't make it fit, for nothing. It is as if for that body the only possibility was to have that brown muzzle from melancholy bracco. And it seems to me that this is the definitive departure from the alleged superiority of our species. Only a dog can be on that body. The "dogman", in fact.
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William Wegman, Constructivism, 2014. Courtesy of the artist
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William Wegman, Newsworthy, 2004. Courtesy of the artist
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A Project by The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography,
Minneapolis / New York / Paris / Lausanne
In collaboration with MASI Switzerland
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http://www.masilugano.ch
In collaboration with MASI Switzerland
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http://www.masilugano.ch
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