CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Artist William Wegman is best known for his photographs of his Weimaraners, but his work also includes painting, drawing and video. Wegman received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois in 1967, and he'll return to campus next week to speak at Krannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Drive, Champaign, at 5:30 p.m. March 5.
Krannert Art Museum is currently showing an exhibition of Wegman's work, titled "Artists Including Me: William Wegman." The exhibition includes Wegman's "postcard paintings," in which he places postcards on a canvas and continues the scene on the card, showing us what might be just outside the frame.
Wegman started using postcards in the early 1990s, when he was making a parody of a nature field guide based on imagery from the Northeast. He used postcards from Maine, where he has a home.
"I remember pasting them on paper and connecting them to make a whole scene," Wegman said. "I was altering my own photographs, beginning in the mid-'70s. I began altering found greeting cards, changing the text and imagery to subvert them a bit. The postcard thing just kind of happened. A friend gave me his collection. I have too many to stop, right now."
His paintings have incorporated the style of other artists, including a large painting in the Krannert exhibition that references the paintings of Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.
"I probably just stuck one up and thought it was amusing. Also, the idea of completing something is rather absurd," Wegman said. "Usually a postcard is a window. You're seeing a picture of a scene, and what's just outside that scene? If Kandinsky continued, what would it be? If it met another Kandinsky or another artist, what would that intersection be like?"
Wegman enjoys the different categories of cards he finds: those with multiple photos, such as hotel cards that show the interior and exterior of the building; cards with writing on them; and cards with beautiful scenery.
"(Postcards) are not used anymore. It's sort of a lost thing. It's fun to rescue them," he said. "It's kept me busy. Just as the dogs have. I've found new ways to photograph these gray creatures.
"The fact they are gray and neutral is why I can keep using them. And the fact that they like doing it," Wegman said. "Each dog that I've had - 10 since 1970 - has brought a whole different look and different way of interacting with the set or the prop. Some dogs are nice with things on them, and others aren't. You just have to feel your way through them."
The Weimaraner photographs are often humorous or satirical. They are accessible and the most well-known of Wegman's work, which encompasses photographs, videos, paintings and drawings. Early in his career, he worked in conceptual art and performance pieces.
"I think when I emerged as an artist, painting was really challenged and usurped by performance and conceptual art. I was one of those that was in that camp," he said. "At the same time, video just came out as a somewhat portable medium. I found it really interesting, and it really spoke to me, that medium.
"The other thing that was really liberating was making drawings on typing paper before I did the big paintings," Wegman said. "For a while there, it really seemed quite complete to have photos, videos and drawings. Especially when I was going through Europe carrying all my work in a tiny little box."
Wegman majored in painting and printmaking at the U. of I., but "I really hated painting when I was there and fought it all the way."
He became friends with professors in electrical engineering and music, and collaborated with them on his thesis project. The project involved three dark rooms he constructed and wired to activate when someone entered. Sound machines came on in the first room, lights were activated in the second room, and an empty soda cup dropped from the ceiling of the third room. Fire officials soon closed the installation.
"I had so many shocks from wiring this thing, but it lived for two days in the lobby of the art building," Wegman said.
He and his fellow graduate students "had to fight for what we were doing, which I think is more important than having total support."
Although Wegman has used a wide range of media, he likes working within a set of limitations.
"One of the problems in art school is everything opens up and you can do anything, and you have to start saying what you won't do," Wegman said. "I really like the limitations and the set of possibilities: the four legs, the gray fur, the light eyes. They all have that, but how they interact with different things is always interesting and surprising."
The dogs have appeared as the characters in children's books Wegman has produced, including "Cinderella" and "Little Red Riding Hood." The latter used his Maine cabin as the location and featured one of his dogs as the wolf, complete with a set of fangs created by a dentist. Wegman was interested in the prospect of the animals slipping between human and animal form, such as the wolf posing as the grandmother in "Little Red Riding Hood."
He also wanted to explore the theme of adoption in "Cinderella."
"When you adopt a dog, it's either fairy godmother or evil stepmother," he said.
Wegman's two oldest dogs died in February, so he has two Weimaraners now. His dogs appeared most recently in photographs in which they are sitting on Herman Miller, Eames and Nelson chairs. The photographs appeared in an exhibition, "Good Dogs on Nice Furniture," shown at the Palm Springs (California) Fine Art Fair in mid-February, where Wegman was named its 2015 Photographer of the Year.
In addition to his March 5 talk at Krannert Art Museum, Wegman will meet with students during his visit to the U. of I.
His advice to current art students: "Just go right ahead and get a dog, and start painting and doing photographs. Just don't get a Weimaraner or use postcards."
More information on the exhibition and Wegman's visit can be found online.