Astronaut

William Wegman

1970 · Single-channel digital video, transferred from Sony CV 1/2-inch video tape, black-and-white, sound, 1 min., 19 sec. · Photographs

This short is part of a collection representing the entirety of Wegman's work in video to date (excepting commissioned works such as his celebrated pieces for Sesame Street). Wegman took up video while studying painting at the University of Wisconsin. Using the camera like a sketchbook, always with the monitor on so he was watching what he was recording in real time, Wegman improvised situations that both slyly took apart the conventions of painting and sculpture that his generation was leaving behind, while also puncturing the pretensions of Conceptual Art as it was being codified and institutionalized on the East Coast.

Artist

William Wegman

Date

1970

Medium

Single-channel digital video, transferred from Sony CV 1/2-inch video tape, black-and-white, sound, 1 min., 19 sec.

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of William Wegman and Christine Burgin, 2017