William Wegman, Funney - Strange Joan Simon

This fascinating book reveals the full range of William Wegman's art. Beloved by the general public for signature photographs of his troupe of Weimaraners, Wegman is also an immensely important figure in the contemporary art world.A pioneer video-maker, conceptualist, performer, photographer, painter, draftsman, and writer, Wegman moves fluidly among various media: from conceptual works to commissioned magazine shots; from videos shown in museums to television segments made for Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live; from artist's books parodying nineteenth-century naturalist studies to children's books revealing tongue-in-cheek portraits of town and country life; from photographic "landscapes" employing his canine muses to his most recent cycle of landscapes combining found scenic souvenir postcards with drawing, collage, and painting. Underlying all his creations is the light humor of "funny" mediating the darker human comedy of "strange." Speaking to the absurdities of daily life, Wegman's work is universally appealing."William Wegman: Funney--Strange "is illustrated with some 250 images. It is the first retrospective volume to consider the artist's entire career from the 1960s to the 2000s and is an essential book for any fan of Wegman's work.

"The retrospective of William Wegman''s multifarious career. . . simultaneously confirms why Mr. Wegman hasn''t always received the respect he deserves and why he deserves it. The short explanation--on both counts--is that he has been too innovatively funny for too long and on too many levels (visual, verbal, commercial and arty) for people to see the serious artist behind the inveterate jokester. He''s also been funny in too many mediums for his achievement to be easily grasped. . . . In his long and productive career, Mr.Wegman has remained as true as any of his legendary 1970''s contemporaries to the belief that the artist''s job is to make something that doesn''t look like art. . . . His best work juggles the many balls of Post-Minimalism--process, language, performance--with an amateurish finesse that few of his
contemporaries match. . . . He has not only embraced Americana, but he has also become part of it."--Roberta Smith, "The New York Times"
--Roberta Smith "The New