Flo/Flow is one in a long line of human-canid collaborations. It was while he was in Long Beach in the 1970′s that Wegman got his dog, Man Ray, with whom he began a fruitful collaboration of many years. Man Ray, known in the art world and beyond for his endearing deadpan presence, became a central figure in Wegman’s photographs and videotapes. Ever since, Weimaraner-actors have peopled Wegman’s uncanny imaginative universe, a reflection on both the human-ness of ‘animals’ and the strangeness of humans.
b. 1943
William Wegman was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He received a B.F.A. in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston in 1965 and an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana in 1967. From 1968 to 1970 he taught at the University of Wisconsin. In the fall of 1970 he moved to Southern California where he taught for one year at California State College, Long Beach. By the early 70s, Wegman’s work was being exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. In addition to solo shows with Sonnabend Gallery in Paris and New York, Situation Gallery in London and Konrad Fisher Gallery in Dusseldorf , his work was included in such seminal exhibitions as “When Attitudes Become Form,” and “Documenta V” and regularly featured in Interfunktionen, Artforum and Avalanche.
William Wegman lives in New York and Maine where he continues to make videos, to take photographs and to make drawings and paintings