THE INSTITUTION
The Rockwell Museum is the only Smithsonian Affiliate in upstate New York — a designation shared by fewer than 1% of museums nationally. Housed in Corning’s beautifully restored 19th-century historic City Hall, the Rockwell is not simply an art museum. It is the cultural anchor of the Southern Tier, connecting this community to the full breadth of the American artistic experience and serving as the region’s primary conduit to national collections, artists, and ideas.
When the Rockwell needed video content to support a major exhibition, they called BWM.
THE EXHIBITION
In the summer of 2024, The Rockwell Museum and the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira collaborated on a dual-venue exhibition: “Experimentation & Representation: The Photography of William Wegman.” The Rockwell presented the experimental side of Wegman’s work — photographs in which his Weimaraner dogs become pure formal subjects, their bodies transformed into landscapes, sculptures, and abstract studies. The Arnot presented the representational work — the iconic dog portraits that have made Wegman one of the most recognized artists in American photography.
The story of how the show came to Corning is worth telling. A Rockwell Museum board member was playing Words with Friends online and noticed her opponent’s avatar featured a Weimaraner. She asked about the breed and gradually realized she was corresponding with William Wegman himself. That chance digital connection led to the introduction, the relationship, and ultimately the exhibition.
WHO WILLIAM WEGMAN IS
William Wegman is one of the most distinctive and widely recognized artists in American photography. A pioneering figure in 1970s conceptual art — with work exhibited at Documenta V in Kassel and the Centre Pompidou in Paris — Wegman became a genuine crossover cultural figure through his decades-long collaboration with his Weimaraner dogs. His films and photographs have appeared on Sesame Street, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, and Late Night with David Letterman. His dogs have graced the cover of The New Yorker. When his first dog, Man Ray, died in 1982, the Village Voice named it “Man of the Year.” He has published more than 40 books, including 20 children’s books. His large-format Polaroid photographs sell for thousands of dollars and his work is held in major museum collections internationally.
His 2024 exhibition schedule ran simultaneously at Sperone Westwater in New York, the Fosun Foundation in Shanghai, a gallery in Andorra, and a solo show in Milan. Corning and Elmira were on that list.
WHAT BWM DID
Brave World Media produced a feature video interview with William Wegman in support of the dual-venue exhibition. The interview delves into Wegman’s life as an artist, his first dog Man Ray, and what visitors could expect from the two shows. The video was designed to serve both the Rockwell and the Arnot — functioning as promotional content for the exhibitions, an introduction to Wegman for regional audiences who may be encountering his work for the first time, and a shareable piece of documentary content that extended the exhibition’s reach beyond both museum walls.
Producing a compelling interview with an artist of Wegman’s stature requires more than technical capability. It requires an understanding of how to frame a conversation that is at once accessible and substantive — that gives a casual visitor a reason to show up, while doing justice to fifty years of serious artistic practice. That’s the kind of video work BWM brings to cultural institutions.
AN ONGOING PARTNERSHIP
The Wegman exhibition interview was one project in what has become a continuing video partnership between BWM and the Rockwell Museum. The museum has since engaged BWM on additional video projects — a relationship that reflects both the quality of the original work and the Rockwell’s confidence in BWM as a creative partner for some of its most significant programming.
We’re proud to help tell the stories that bring this institution — and the artists it champions — to life.
WILLIAM WEGMAN VIDEO FEATURE