Exhibitions
Events
On display
Short Tails
William Wegman George 1997. Colour Polaroid photograph. Courtesy the artist. © William Wegman
Film
Past event
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free
The Hardly Boys film for all ages by artist William Wegman starring his iconic Weimaraners. Every frame a delight.
Repeating Wednesdays 4pm and Sundays 11am and 3pm.
Related reading: Free event, William Wegman
Exhibition
William Wegman: Being Human
6 April – 4 August 2019
The first and only New Zealand exhibition of American artist William Wegman’s photographic work
Director's Foreword
William Wegman: Being Human
It’s a busy time at the Gallery, as we prepare for the opening of William Wegman: Being Human. Wegman is a very significant American artist and this is his first and only show in New Zealand, so we are thrilled to have such a thorough representation of his work on show here at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Wegman, who is famous for working with his Weimaraner dogs, was part of the late 1960s and early 1970s American conceptualist movement, and has produced a huge body of work that examines the human condition through photography and video. Wegman was also one of the earliest artists to see popular culture as a platform for expanding artistic practice and gaining critical attention (he co-produced the hugely influential 1988 re-release music video for New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’ – at the time a record-breaking entry in New Zealand’s charts).
Commentary
Anthropomorphism
Artist William Wegman has been photographing his Weimaraners in endless humanoid situations for more than four decades. Starting with Man Ray in the 1970s, Fay Ray in the 1980s and her subsequent offspring ever since, Wegman’s most popular artistic foil has been his pet dogs. For a number of reasons, this has occasionally meant his work has been thought of as naïve or sentimental – a trivial comic enterprise not too dissimilar to Anne Geddes’s notorious baby photos.
