Series: Artist's Showcase
Program: Selected Works, William Wegman, 1973-1974
Date: 1975-04-07
Duration: 00:00:48

Subject: Documentary films; Video art; Dogs
People: Wegman, William
Copyright Holder: William Wegman

Clip Description
This excerpt from the Selected Works of William Wegman features Wegman teaching his dog, May Ray, how to spell the word "beach." Wegman commends Man Ray for spelling the words "park" and "out" correctly, but mistakenly spelling "beech" instead of "beach."

Program Description
This episode of "Artist's Showcase" features "Selected Works, William Wegman, 1973-1974" by William Wegman.

Selections from the works of William Wegman are interspersed with an interview between the artist and Russell Connor, which takes place in a variety of settings. Wegman discusses the interview process, his influences and audiences, his working process, and his dog Man Ray.

Segmented works show Wegman teaching Man Ray to spell "beach," a monologue from the perspective of a mouth less boy, a monologue of a shock-therapy patient whose face is frozen into a permanent smile, the adjustment of a dog's position based on the flipping of a coin, boot, deodorant, and massage-chair "commercials", a knock-kneed airplane traveler, and a conversation based around the copyright page of a dictionary.

This was created for WNET's "Video Television Review" and may have been broadcast on "Artist's Showcase."

"Artist's Showcase" was a series designed to showcase video art and experimental work from WGBH. The program ran on Sunday evenings at 11 P.M., from the fall of 1976 through 1982. In the early 1970's, "Artist's Showcase" was the only consistent broadcast outlet for many of the Workshop productions. Most materials of broadcast quality created at WGBH in the mid-1970's were shown as part of this series. Additionally, earlier video art experiments and segments of related shows, such as "Mixed Bag" or "What's Happening Mr. Silver" were broadcast under these auspices. This series was also a broadcast outlet for a handful of works by video artists that were not created at WGBH but only acquired for this purpose. Some compilation reels showing highlights of Workshop activity were also broadcast.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Selected333.HTML