Dog Days

×

Expand

Elliott Erwitt, “New York City,” 1974 (private collection)

Dogs are everywhere at the moment. In department stores, hair salons and offices. You can’t go anywhere without tripping over a fur baby. So the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver decided if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Dog Days, a selection of photographs and videos of our beloved canines, drawn from the last century, is marking its territory until Sept. 1. 

The images run the gamut, from quick snapshots to glamour-pup photos befitting movie stars. It’s an eclectic selection, to put it mildly, but what emerges is a larger picture of a singular relationship. 

×

Expand

Sherman Montrose, "Invasion Pooch, France," 1944

In the oldest images, dogs have jobs – pulling sleds, rescuing hikers from avalanches and generally doing some heavy lifting for humans. But as time moved on, so did the partnership, mirroring, in a fashion, the evolution of society itself. 

The rough-and-ready canines of old, pictured in Canadian mining camps or alongside Appalachian hillbillies, became more ornamental. The shivering Chihuahua dressed in a sweater and beanie in Elliott Erwitt’s New York City seems like a different species than the Great Dane towering beside it. 

×

Expand

Shelby Lee Adams, “Chester with Hounds,” 1992 (private collection)

What humans have wrought on dogs is a kind of decadence. But as dogs lost their primary functions as workers, hunters and warriors, they took up new roles as companions, accessories and muses. 

In Dog Days, it’s the animal’s ability to inspire that leaps up and licks your face. A case in point is American photographer William Wegman, whose collaborations with his dog, Man Ray, catapulted his career. 

Wegman’s famous Cinderella series, wherein the artist’s long-suffering Weimaraners take on fairy-tale tropes, are familiar from children’s books, as well as gallery shows. Dressed up in poofy princess attire, bad wigs and lop-sided crowns, the dogs fix the camera with flat, disaffected stares that speak volumes: “Why are you doing this to me, human?”

×

Expand

Anonymous press photo, circa 1960s (courtesy of Winter Works on Paper, New York)

In putting together the show, curator Diane Evans had access to four boxes of archival photos from New York art dealer David Winter. In addition to Winter’s collection, Evans searched like a bloodhound through the American Library of Congress and the Vancouver Public Library to source the show’s 90-odd images. 

The pack of photographers – which includes international stars like Britain's Eadweard Muybridge, France's Jacques Henri Lartigue and American Gordon Parks, as well as Canadians Marian Penner Bancroft, Nina Raginsky, Shari Hatt, David Strongman and Percy Bentley – is a motley crew. But what unites their work is the peculiar poignancy of dogs. 

×

Expand

David Strongman, “Tiny, photographed on the set of Pup Star,” 2015

It’s hard to look at the array of images – all those beseeching eyes and furry faces – and not feel your heart crack open. Out come wiggly wet-nosed emotions that are impossible to resist. So don’t even try. Let the warmth and love captured in Art Perry’s image of the late rocker Lou Reed and his rat terrier Lolabelle, immortalized in Laurie Anderson’s extraordinary film, Heart of a Dog, flood your insides. Give it a bone and a pat on its head.

There’s a simplicity to Dog Days that is oddly refreshing in an age when everything feels a little suspect, if not downright compromised. One leaves the show feeling lighter, bouncier and ready for unconditional love. ■

Dogs Days is on view at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver from June 25 to Sept. 1, 2019. Dogs are welcome – on leashes. 

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West Stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.