The date for submissions to the Cave Canem exhibition expired last week but strangely enough entries are still arriving in Barga hoping to take part. This morning three more entries arrived at the galleries from three very different places and using three very different mediums. The first to arrive were two full size sculptures, one in bronze featuring a pointer and the other a bulldog from the Florentine sculptor Daniele Schmiedt. The second, a black and white photograph arrived in the post from the photographer Rory Wilmer, based for a number of years in Prague but now based in his home town of Liverpool, England. The third arrived via the internet and came from the illustrator Jack Syracuse, based in New York and features President Obama’s dog, Bo but done in the style of the now famous election poster designed by artist Shepard Fairey, which was widely described as iconic and became synonymous with the 2008 Obama presidential campaign. It consists of a stylized stencil portrait of Bo in solid red, white and (pastel and dark) blue, with the word “woof”
Bo (born October 9, 2008) is the pet dog of the Obama family, the First Family of the United States Bo is a neutered male Portuguese Water Dog, or Portie President Barack Obama and his family were given the dog as a gift after months of speculation about the breed and identity of their future pet. The final choice was made in part because Malia Obama’s allergies dictated a need for a hypoallergenic breed. The White House has referred to him as the “First Dog”, a US cultural term occasionally used during recent administrations.
When 73 artists join forces to present nearly 100 paintings, sculptures, videos and poems on a single theme, the result can’t really be called something as limited as a mostra (“exhibition”). It’s more in the nature of an encyclopaedic survey. In the case of Cave Canem, the event that opened in three Barga venues November 1, the encyclopedia’s sweep covers virtually everything known, suspected or fantasized about dogs – mostly, but not exclusively, in their relations to human beings. Like our canine companions themselves, the works come in such diverse sizes, shapes and moods that generalizations are all but impossible. Full article with all of the images of the exhibition is here
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