• Dietrich Wegner: And to Think That It Was Found Upside Down
    October 26 – December 8, 2012

Dietrich Wegner: And to Think That It Was Found Upside Down

October 26—December 8, 2012


Carrie Secrist Gallery is pleased to present Dietrich Wegner: And to Think That It Was Found Upside Down from October 26 to December 8, 2012. For his second solo project with the gallery, Wegner exhibits new sculpture, painting, and work on paper.

Please join us for a reception for the artist on Friday, October 26 from 5 to 8 PM.

For And to Think That It Was Found Upside Down, Wegner combines a study of primate evolution and human development with Dr. Seuss-like folklore. By layering found imagery with photographic, painterly, and illustrative techniques, Wegner manipulates the relationship between reality and perception. The resulting pictures of apes and children in precarious landscapes occupy a fantasy space of the artist’s own design.

The sculptural installation Homeland (2012), composed of plastic model houses atop wooden stilts, acts as a backdrop for Wegner’s dystopic narrative imagery. Wegner imagines each of his two-dimensional pictures as scenes within this serene village setting. Invented evolutions, wherein chimps roost on eggs, disregard our known understanding of biological and psychological maturity. As Wegner’s fable unfolds, viewers empathize with his characters, becoming accomplices in his mythology. Inevitably, what we see in And to Think That It Was Found Upside Down is not always true or essential, advancing the exhibition’s premise that the compression of “reality” with both digital and analog methods offers varied meanings.

Dietrich Wegner (American, b. 1978) is Associate Professor of Art at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. Previous exhibitions include Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; Weston Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH; and Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.

Images

  • Homeland, 2012
    Plastic model houses, wood
    70 pieces
    Dimensions vary

  • Homeland, 2012
    Plastic model houses, wood
    70 pieces
    Dimensions vary

  • Homeland, 2012
    Plastic model houses, wood
    70 pieces
    Dimensions vary

  • Chimp on Egg, 2012
    Oil on canvas
    60 x 60 inches

  • Egg Stack, 2012
    Oil on canvas
    47 x 108 inches

  • Edge, 2012
    Oil on canvas
    74 x 57 inches

  • Lattice, 2012
    Graphite on archival polyester film, mounted to wood panel
    16 x 12 inches

  • Stack, 2012
    Gouache over pigment print on paper
    56 x 48 inches, framed

  • Stack, 2012
    Detail
    Gouache over pigment print on paper
    56 x 48 inches, framed

Additional Information