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Dull Knife/Sharp Knife

1972
Not on view
Many of Wegman’s early photographs examine specific qualities of the medium and its technology—such as the transparency and reversibility of the negative or masking out the background with a vignette—to make broader points about the vagaries of knowledge versus vision, the ideal versus the failed attempt, expectation versus reality. These concerns were often structured in the works via visual puns, homonyms, and word play. In Dull Knife/Sharp Knife, the “selective focus” of camera-eye vision spills over humorously into second and third meanings of the words (for example, the sharpening of a knife and the focusing of perception).

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Dull Knife/Sharp Knife
  • Artist: William Wegman (American, born 1943)
  • Date: 1972
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 31.5 x 27.5 cm (12 3/8 x 10 13/16 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 2011
  • Object Number: 2011.314
  • Rights and Reproduction: © William Wegman, Courtesy of the Artist
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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