Summary
Dog is one of twenty works produced by contemporary artists for the Cubitt Print Box in 2000. Cubitt is an artist-run gallery and studio complex in north London. In 2001 the complex moved from King’s Cross to Islington and the prints were commissioned as part of a drive to raise funds to help finance the move, and to support future exhibitions and events at the new gallery space. All the artists who contributed to the project had previously taken part in Cubitt’s programme. The portfolio was produced in an edition of 100 with twenty artists’ proofs; Tate’s copy is number sixty-six in the series.
McCarthy’s print is a unique colour Polaroid photograph of a German Shepherd dog sitting on a blue blanket in a domestic interior. For the Cubitt series the artist took 120 photographs documenting the illness and subsequent death of his pet dog. Most of these are in colour but the final images in the sequence are black and white. The image in Tate’s collection was taken from a low perspective with the camera positioned on the floor looking up at the dog. Two images are superimposed in the photograph. In one the dog’s placid head is turned to the left; in the other he looks up and to the right, his mouth open mid-bark… (read more)
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