For Frieze Masters 2019, Sperone Westwater presents a focused exhibition of photographs, videos and works on paper by the artist William Wegman. Extending themes from the 2018 exhibition “Before/On/After: William Wegman and California Conceptualism” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this selection further explores the pioneering role of Wegman in the development of Conceptual Art in Southern California.  

Wegman spent only three years in Los Angeles, from 1970-1973, but during this time, he became closely associated with such artists as Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari and Allen Ruppersberg, with whom he shared both a sense of irreverence towards conceptual art and maybe even more importantly, a sense of humor.

Wegman has exhibited extensively both in the United States and internationally since the late 1960s. His work was included in such seminal exhibitions as “When Attitude Becomes Form” (1969) and “Documenta 5” (1972). Numerous retrospective exhibitions have been made of Wegman’s work including “Wegman’s World” at the Walker Art Center (1981);  “William Wegman: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs and Videotapes” at the Kunstmuseum, Lucerne (1990),  the Centre Pompidou (1991) and the Whitney Museum (1992);  and “William Wegman: Funney/Strange” at the Brooklyn Museum (2006) and  the Wexner Center for the Arts (2007). “Being Human,” a survey exhibition of over thirty years of Wegman’s photographic work is currently on view at MASILugano and travels to the Fotomuseum Gemeentemuseum, The Hague in 2020. Wegman’s work is in many important public collections including Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Centre Pompidou; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center; and the Whitney Museum.