First William Wegman
Retrospective in Fifteen Years
On View March 10 Through May 28, 2006
Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway,
Brooklyn, New York 11238-6052
(718) 638-5000; TTY: (718) 399-8440
The Brooklyn Museum is the first venue of William Wegman: Funney/Strange, an exhibition exploring forty years of Wegmans work in all media. The first retrospective of this artists work in more than fifteen years, the exhibition is on view from March 10 through May 28. Included are more than 200 works, among them the signature 20 x 24 Polaroids, as well as early black-and-white and altered photographs, as well as paintings, drawings, collages, artists books, videos, and film.
The exhibition has been organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and curated by the independent curator Trevor Fairbrother. After its premiere at Brooklyn, Funney/Strange will travel to the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach; and the Addison Gallery. An extensive catalogue, written by scholar and critic Joan Simon and published by Yale University Press in association with the Addison Gallery of American Art, will accompany the exhibition.
Beloved by the general public and held in critical esteem, Wegman fascinates both audiences for much the same reason: a smart, gently subversive humor that destabilizes the familiar to reveal lifes essential oddity. Throughout his career, he has moved seamlessly among various media, from conceptual works to commissioned magazine shots, from video work to television segments made for Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live; from artists books to childrens books, from photographic landscapes employing his dogs to his most recent series of paintings that incorporate scenic postcards with drawing, collage, and paint. This exhibition will bring together classic Wegman images with rarely exhibited material and surprising new work.
Generous support for this exhibition and publication was provided by The Henry Luce Foundation.
The exhibition is sponsored at the Brooklyn Museum by Commerce Bank.
Additional support is provided by the Brooklyn Museums Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Exhibition Fund.
AM New York is media sponsor.
Contact: Sally Williams, Public Information Officer (718) 501-6330 sally.williams@brooklynmuseum.org
