William Wegman
in conversation with
Richard Armstrong
Fourth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture
Tuesday, May 13, 2014, 6:30pm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
5th Ave at 89th St
New York City
In honor of Robert Rosenblum (1927–2006), former Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of Twentieth-Century Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Henry Ittleson, Jr., Professor of Modern European Art at New York University, the Guggenheim will host the artist William Wegman in conversation with Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, at its Fourth Annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture.
Spanning over four decades of creative practice in drawing, painting, performance, photography, and video, Wegman has been referred to as the “most accessible and, in his own way, richly human of all Conceptual artists” (Roberta Smith, “Beyond Dogs: Wegman Unleashed,” New York Times, March 10, 2006). While his expansive body of work is renowned for its humorous, whimsical view of everyday life, Wegman’s use of irony and deadpan wit reveals an equally quirky, sardonic mind at work. Moving fluidly between conceptual works, paintings, and ongoing collaborations with his celebrated troupe of Weimaraners, Wegman reflects upon a singular artistic career.
The artist has had numerous retrospectives including Wegman’s World, which opened in 1982 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and William Wegman: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs, Videotapes, which opened in 1990 at the Kunstmuseum in Lucerne and traveled to the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His work has also been shown in Japan, Korea, Spain, and Sweden. In 2006, the acclaimed Funney/Strange exhibition opened at the Brooklyn Museum before making its final stop in 2007 at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. Wegman continues to participate in international solo and group exhibitions.
About the Robert Rosenblum Lecture series
The Guggenheim’s annual Robert Rosenblum Lecture series honors the wide-ranging career of Robert Rosenblum, whose celebrated work included projects on Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol, and the depiction of dogs in art. From his Transformations in Late 18th-Century Art (1967) to The Dog in Art: From Rococo to Post-Modernism (1988), Rosenblum reveled in what he called “‘the messy mix’ of high and low” (Grace Glueck, “Robert Rosenblum, 79, Curator and Art Historian, Dies,” New York Times, December 9, 2006). A beloved teacher in both the undergraduate and graduate departments at New York University, Rosenblum received a distinguished teaching award in 2005. Previous Annual Robert Rosenblum Lectures have included the curator Sir Norman Rosenthal in conversation with the curator Jeffrey Deitch on “To be with art is all we ask,” the artists Gilbert and George in conversation with writer Michael Bracewell, the art historian Bridget Alsdorf (Princeton University) on “Bonnard, Vallotton, and the Fine Art of Gawking in Fin de Siècle France,” and the art historian Ellen McBreen (Wheaton College) on “‘I Paint the Differences between Things’: Matisse, Photography, and African Sculpture.” This series is facilitated by donors to the Robert Rosenblum Fund, who are gratefully acknowledged for their generosity.
Information and tickets
For more information, call the box office at T +1 212 423 3587 or visit guggenheim.org.
A limited number of free student tickets are available with RSVP.
A reception and an exhibition viewing of Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe will follow the program.
