William Wegman

William Wegman

Profile

William Wegman

Movies

William Wegman: Video Work 1970-1999
Director
From 1970-1977 William Wegman created some of the most innovative and important works in the history of video. These early pioneering tapes were created using minimal technology and a few studio props, including Wegman’s canine companion, Man Ray. Consisting of 130 works, some no longer than a television commercial, blurred the boundaries between high and low art as well as art and commerce, and have become a major chapter in the histories of contemporary art and film. This exhaustive compilation has been assembled by the artist with restored material and it contains all nine original reels as well as two later reels. Classics such as Pocketbook Man, Milk/Floor, Stomach Song, Cape On, Stick and Tooth, Spelling Lesson, Dog Duet, Man Ray, Do You Want to? Are included.
William Wegman: Video Work 1970-1999
Director
From 1970-1977 William Wegman created some of the most innovative and important works in the history of video. These early pioneering tapes were created using minimal technology and a few studio props, including Wegman’s canine companion, Man Ray. Consisting of 130 works, some no longer than a television commercial, blurred the boundaries between high and low art as well as art and commerce, and have become a major chapter in the histories of contemporary art and film. This exhaustive compilation has been assembled by the artist with restored material and it contains all nine original reels as well as two later reels. Classics such as Pocketbook Man, Milk/Floor, Stomach Song, Cape On, Stick and Tooth, Spelling Lesson, Dog Duet, Man Ray, Do You Want to? Are included.
Selected Video Works
Director
Absurd stories mix with wordplay in the early video works of William Wegman. Product demonstrations, application of household appliance on videotape, stomach hummings. Copyright reminiscing. Man Ray chews the microphone... A selection from the hours of short performances Wegman recorded in his studio from 1970-1978. Selected Video Works includes Two Dogs And Ball (silent), Used Car Salesman, Dog Biscuit In Glass Jar.
William Wegman's Mother Goose
Director
Mother Goose tries to teach her son, Simon Goose, how to rhyme using some of her famous nursery rhymes.
William Wegman's Mother Goose
Narrator
Mother Goose tries to teach her son, Simon Goose, how to rhyme using some of her famous nursery rhymes.
Fay's 12 Days of Christmas
Director
Willam Wegman brings together his famous family of weimaraners to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas in a witty and delightful festival of decorating, crafts, cooking, gift wrapping, fruitcake, and more. Watch as Batty, Crooky, Chundo and Fay celebrate the season as only they can.
The Hardly Boys in Hardly Gold
Director
A bottle of nerve manna, a disappearing golf ball and some rocks . . . it all adds up to the Hardly Boys' toughest case yet. The Hardly Boys have returned to Rangeley Lake for another relaxing summer at the Hardly Inn. Fishing, boating, tennis and their friend Chip Mason await them, but the boys soon find themselves enmeshed in a perplexing mystery that puts to the test their sleuthing skills and secret dog powers. What are the Nurse and the Caretaker up to?! And what happened to Gladiola Mason? She invited hem to lunch and now she's disappeared!
The Hardly Boys in Hardly Gold
Writer
A bottle of nerve manna, a disappearing golf ball and some rocks . . . it all adds up to the Hardly Boys' toughest case yet. The Hardly Boys have returned to Rangeley Lake for another relaxing summer at the Hardly Inn. Fishing, boating, tennis and their friend Chip Mason await them, but the boys soon find themselves enmeshed in a perplexing mystery that puts to the test their sleuthing skills and secret dog powers. What are the Nurse and the Caretaker up to?! And what happened to Gladiola Mason? She invited hem to lunch and now she's disappeared!
Alphabet Soup
Director
William Wegman and his dogs - Fay Ray, Batty, Chundo, and Crooky - teach children the alphabet.
Video: The New Wave
The New Wave is the seminal compendium of independent video work in the early 1970s. Written and narrated by Brian O'Doherty, this overview of the emerging video field includes examples of guerrilla television and "street" documentaries, early explorations with image-processing and synthesis, and performance video. This historical anthology includes excerpts of tapes by the following video pioneers: Stephen Beck and Warner Jepson, Peter Campus, Douglas Davis, Ed Emshwiller, Bill Etra, Frank Gillette, Don Hallock, Joan Jonas, Richard Serra, Paul Kos, Nam June Paik, Otto Piene, Willard Rosenquist, Dan Sandin, James Seawright, Steina Vasulka, TVTV, Stan Vanderbeek and William Wegman.
Dog Duet
"In the piece we see the two dogs staring at the camera in a dark room. Their eyes are intently following something off camera. Sometimes their head movement is pull into the action as they crane to follow the whatever it is in various left right and up down directions. At one point the action seems to stop and the dogs begin to blink in syncopation. At this point Hooka settles down into a lying position but Man Ray remains riveted. Towards the end piece the dogs crane to look behind them and at one miraculous moment their motions counter each other. At the end we see the object of their attention…in my hand, a tennis ball."
Dog Duet
Director
"In the piece we see the two dogs staring at the camera in a dark room. Their eyes are intently following something off camera. Sometimes their head movement is pull into the action as they crane to follow the whatever it is in various left right and up down directions. At one point the action seems to stop and the dogs begin to blink in syncopation. At this point Hooka settles down into a lying position but Man Ray remains riveted. Towards the end piece the dogs crane to look behind them and at one miraculous moment their motions counter each other. At the end we see the object of their attention…in my hand, a tennis ball."
New & Used Car Salesman
Director
William Wegman's lewd stroking of his dog apes television's crass marketing strategies.
New & Used Car Salesman
William Wegman's lewd stroking of his dog apes television's crass marketing strategies.
Treat Bottle
Director
Pursuit of a dog biscuit inside a glass bottle creates the type of narrative suspense that draws us into the action on the screen.
Reel 1
Director
In Reel 1, Wegman creates deadpan one-liners and ironic sight gags from materials that include his own body, everyday objects such as balls and dolls, and his dog Man Ray. The humor derives from the wild incongruity of expected and actual behavior or events. Inanimate objects are personified; extended actions lead to absurd anticlimaxes. In Stomach Song, Wegman sits in a chair, his bare torso facing the camera. As he gruffly hums a song, his torso becomes a face, with nipples as eyes, navel as mouth. Raising his arms, the "facial" features change gender and he hums in falsetto. Other segments find him blowing a feather from his nose and creating pendulous female "breasts" by folding his elbows to his body. The ever-obliging Man Ray drags a microphone in his mouth, laps up milk that Wegman has drooled onto the floor, and, in an oddly poetic exercise, runs through a darkened room with a flashlight in his mouth.
The Bubble Gum Film
Director
A little girl blows a very big bubble and the bubble bursts.
Stomach Song
Director
Single-channel digital video, transferred from Sony CV 1/2-inch video tape, black-and-white, sound