Hey Detroit! You have two chances to meet William Wegman this weekend. From the Cranbrook Museum of Art's website:
Sunday, February 9, 4pm
William Wegman
Artist
An Afternoon with William Wegman
Sponsored by Cranbrook Art Museum
For information or to register for the Cocktails + Conversation event with William Wegman, click here.
Although William Wegman may be best known as a photographer for his creative compositions involving dogs—primarily his own Weimaraners in various costumes and poses—his career as an artist is much more varied and complex. Coming of age in the 1960s, Wegman was among the first generation to embrace conceptual art and video and by the early 1970s his work was being exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. Wegman will discuss his career as an artist, including his newest body of work, which finds him returning to his training in the arts as a painter.
William Wegman was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1943. He graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1965 with a BFA in painting, then enrolled in the graduate painting and printmaking program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, receiving an MFA in 1967. After teaching at various universities, Wegman’s interests in areas beyond painting led him to photography and the then-infant medium of video. While living in Long Beach, California, Wegman acquired Man Ray, the dog with whom he began a fruitful twelve-year collaboration. A central figure in Wegman’s photography and videos, Man Ray became known in the art world and beyond for his endearing, deadpan presence. In 1972, Wegman and Man Ray moved to New York. In 1986, a new dog, Fay Ray, came into Wegman’s life; and soon thereafter another famous collaboration began, marked by Wegman’s use of the Polaroid 20-by-24-inch camera. With the birth of Fay’s litter in 1989 and her daughter’s litter in 1995, Wegman’s cast of characters grew. His photographs, videos, paintings, and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States, including Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Orange County Museum of Art in California. Wegman lives in New York and Maine.
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