Il cane di pistoletto: Jonathan Monk

"When seeing Dvir Gallery's new exhibition space in Brussels I was very surprised to see that the majority of wall space was taken over by 18th century (I'm guessing) plaster moldings that framed every wall. The galleries was gridded and offered little of the minimal details associated with a contemporary art gallery – but I really liked it. I decided to use the frames as frames to frame a photograph or series of photographs.
But which photograph(s) ?
After a number of attempts I settled on one small black and white photographic portrait of a dog. I'd acquired the photograph some years ago in Rome and have been waiting for the right situation to use it... to walk with it. I'm not exactly sure what breed the dog is but a hand written text on the reverse of the photograph tells us that the dog was Pistoletto's – I can only assume the dog's owner was the Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. The photograph was scanned to a very high resolution and then cut and cropped to fit each individual molding or frame... the massive images become almost abstract – a dog dissected to fit... an abstract anatomical study".
- Jonathan Monk, 2017