Bruce Nauman

This exhibition presents a new work by Bruce Nauman, Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, which continues the artist's exploration of video, sound, and performance. Characteristic of his work over the last five decades, Nauman transforms a simple and subtle gesture into a complex network of images and sound.

This exhibition presents a new work by Bruce Nauman, Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, which continues the artist's exploration of video, sound, and performance. Characteristic of his work over the last five decades, Nauman transforms a simple and subtle gesture into a complex network of images and sound.

HD video installation (color, stereo sound), continuous play, two HD video sources, two HD video projectors, four speakers

HD video installation (color, stereo sound), continuous play, two HD video sources, two HD video projectors, four speakers

For Seven Easy Pieces Marina Abramovic reenacted five seminal performance works by her peers, dating from the 1960's and 70's, and two of her own, interpreting them as one would a musical score. The project confronted the fact that little documentation exists from this critical early period and one often has to rely upon testimony from witnesses or photographs that show only portions of any given performance. The seven works were performed for seven hours each, over the course of seven consecutive days, November 9 –15, 2005 at the Guggenheim Museum, in New York City. Seven Easy Pieces examines the possibilities of representing and preserving an art form that is, by nature, ephemeral.

Seven screens show videos of as many places in Bruce Nauman's studio during the summer of 2000. He filmed these slices of night life with an infrared camera and processed them during editing. But one person is conspicuous by his absence: the artist. From time to time, only a cat wanders between the workbenches. Test Tape Chance John Cage is an incursion into a place dedicated to creation. It highlights the silence, sleep and inactivity at the heart of the creative process.

The artist Bruce Nauman set the corner post of a fence on his ranch in Galisteo, New Mexico, one day and videotaped the process. As the title of Setting a Good Corner (Allegory & Metaphor) suggests, Nauman sees this simple, even mundane, activity as an allegory and metaphor for other areas of life. Maybe we are to see the work as a metaphor for making a work of art, since Nauman has chosen to film it for display in a museum. One of the key elements of the video is Nauman’s decision to show us the entire process. He does not leave out the long digging scenes or edit the piece down to its most essential components.

The artist Bruce Nauman set the corner post of a fence on his ranch in Galisteo, New Mexico, one day and videotaped the process. As the title of Setting a Good Corner (Allegory & Metaphor) suggests, Nauman sees this simple, even mundane, activity as an allegory and metaphor for other areas of life. Maybe we are to see the work as a metaphor for making a work of art, since Nauman has chosen to film it for display in a museum. One of the key elements of the video is Nauman’s decision to show us the entire process. He does not leave out the long digging scenes or edit the piece down to its most essential components.

This is one of four videos in a collection called Clown Torture, 1987 by Bruce Nauman- this one being "Clown with Goldfish" featured at the Chicago Art Institute.

In the work two monitors are displayed at head height on pedestals. The head and shoulders of a young black man appear on one; on the other is an older white woman. They both speak the same sequence of a hundred phrases five times, beginning in a flat neutral tone, and becoming increasingly animated and intense until by the fifth recitation they appear very angry. Their techniques of delivery are quite different, and result in a slippage of time, so that played on a continuous loop, the two tapes become out of sequence.

Images of sixteen men and women are shown, one by one, as they run on a conveyor belt against a black background. They appear to be in a complete void. The camera films the runners from all kinds of angles: sometimes from the front, from the knees up, then in profile or a focus on one of the limbs in close up. The heavy breathing of their exertions is audible. The tight close-ups of the limbs lend the moving body parts an almost abstract, mechanical character.

An upside-down close-up of the artist’s mouth, Nauman repeats the words “lip sync” as the audio track shifts in and out of sync with the video. The disjunction between what is seen and heard keeps the viewer on edge, struggling to attach the sound of the words with the off-kilter movements of Nauman’s mouth.

In this film, Nauman bounces his testicles with one hand. Shot in extreme close-up, the work is perhaps an ironic reference to an earlier film Bouncing Two Balls Between the Floor and Ceiling with Changing Rhythms, in which he bounced rubber balls. Along with Black Balls, Gauze, and Pulling Mouth, Bouncing Balls is one of Nauman's "Slo-Mo" films which are shot with an industrial high speed camera.

In this film, Nauman bounces his testicles with one hand. Shot in extreme close-up, the work is perhaps an ironic reference to an earlier film Bouncing Two Balls Between the Floor and Ceiling with Changing Rhythms, in which he bounced rubber balls. Along with Black Balls, Gauze, and Pulling Mouth, Bouncing Balls is one of Nauman's "Slo-Mo" films which are shot with an industrial high speed camera.

In this film, Nauman bounces his testicles with one hand. Shot in extreme close-up, the work is perhaps an ironic reference to an earlier film Bouncing Two Balls Between the Floor and Ceiling with Changing Rhythms, in which he bounced rubber balls. Along with Black Balls, Gauze, and Pulling Mouth, Bouncing Balls is one of Nauman's "Slo-Mo" films which are shot with an industrial high speed camera.

In this film, Nauman, bit by bit, pulls five or six yards of gauze from his mouth. Along with Black Balls and Pulling Mouth, it is one of the "Slo-Mo" films that he shot with an industrial high speed camera.

This film records the activities Nauman performed four years earlier in 1965. Both in this performance and in this work he strikes and holds a variety of poses on the floor in relation to a glowing fluorescent light fixture.

In this film, Nauman applies black makeup to his testicles. The action was recorded with an industrial high-speed camera capable of shooting between one thousand and four thousand frames per second.

In this film, Nauman applies black makeup to his testicles. The action was recorded with an industrial high-speed camera capable of shooting between one thousand and four thousand frames per second.

From an inverted position, high above the floor, the camera records Nauman’s trek back and forth and across the studio; his stamping creates a generative rhythm reminiscent of native drum beats or primitive dance rituals. However, Nauman is not participating in a social rite or communal ritual—he is completely individualized. Isolated in his studio, his actions have no apparent reason or cause beyond his aesthetic practice.

From an inverted position, high above the floor, the camera records Nauman’s trek back and forth and across the studio; his stamping creates a generative rhythm reminiscent of native drum beats or primitive dance rituals. However, Nauman is not participating in a social rite or communal ritual—he is completely individualized. Isolated in his studio, his actions have no apparent reason or cause beyond his aesthetic practice.

In this film record of a studio activity, Nauman set himself the task of walking while playing "two notes [on a violin] very close together so that you could hear the beats in the harmonics." The camera is set centrally in the studio in a stationary position so that when he walks outside of the camera's view at times, only the sounds of the notes and footsteps are heard. Sound and image are out of sync, a situation noticeable only at the end of the film when the sound stops but Nauman continues to pace and play. [Overview Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix]

In this film record of a studio activity, Nauman set himself the task of walking while playing "two notes [on a violin] very close together so that you could hear the beats in the harmonics." The camera is set centrally in the studio in a stationary position so that when he walks outside of the camera's view at times, only the sounds of the notes and footsteps are heard. Sound and image are out of sync, a situation noticeable only at the end of the film when the sound stops but Nauman continues to pace and play. [Overview Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix]

A fixed camera turned on its side records Nauman repeating for nearly an hour a laborious sequence of body movements inspired by passages in works by Samuel Beckett that describe similarly repetitive and meaningless activities. Hands clasped behind his back, he kicks one leg up at a right angle to his body, pivots forty-five degrees, falls forward hard with a thumping noise, extends the rear leg again at a right angle behind, and begins the sequence again. As in many of his fixed-camera film and video works, parts of Nauman's body disappear from the frame as he moves close to the camera; occasionally, he walks off-screen completely while the sound of his footsteps continues on the sound tracks.

A fixed camera turned on its side records Nauman repeating for nearly an hour a laborious sequence of body movements inspired by passages in works by Samuel Beckett that describe similarly repetitive and meaningless activities. Hands clasped behind his back, he kicks one leg up at a right angle to his body, pivots forty-five degrees, falls forward hard with a thumping noise, extends the rear leg again at a right angle behind, and begins the sequence again. As in many of his fixed-camera film and video works, parts of Nauman's body disappear from the frame as he moves close to the camera; occasionally, he walks off-screen completely while the sound of his footsteps continues on the sound tracks.

In this silent film, Nauman walks around the perimeter of a large square marked off with masking tape. He shifts his hips exaggeratedly as he places one foot in front of the other, moving carefully around the square.

In this silent film, Nauman walks around the perimeter of a large square marked off with masking tape. He shifts his hips exaggeratedly as he places one foot in front of the other, moving carefully around the square.

Bruce Nauman - Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (Square Dance) (1968), 16mm black-and-white film For this film, Bruce Nauman made a square of masking tape on the studio floor, with each side marked at its halfway point. To the sound of a metronome and beginning at one corner, he methodically moves around the perimeter of the square, sometimes facing into its interior, sometimes out.

Bruce Nauman - Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (Square Dance) (1968), 16mm black-and-white film For this film, Bruce Nauman made a square of masking tape on the studio floor, with each side marked at its halfway point. To the sound of a metronome and beginning at one corner, he methodically moves around the perimeter of the square, sometimes facing into its interior, sometimes out.

Bruce assumes a set of positions in relation to the wall and floor.

Experimental short by Bruce Nauman.

Creative portrait of the artist Bruce Nauman.

"In this videotape Nauman attempted to maintain the contrapposto pose associated with classical and Renaissance sculpture while walking down a long, narrow corridor of his own design. In this position, one knee is bent, and weight is shifted to the opposing hip. Trying to walk while holding the pose of Donatello's David is absurd and comical, but there is also a menacing discomfort to Walk with Contrapposto. With both hands behind his head, Nauman resembles a prisoner; the video camera positioned high above him might be a surveillance device. He elected to show the corridor without the video at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1969, inviting viewers to traverse it. Nauman removed himself from the piece yet maintained a claustrophobic sense of control: "It's another way of limiting the situation so that someone else can be a performer, but he can do only what I want him to do," he said."

"In this videotape Nauman attempted to maintain the contrapposto pose associated with classical and Renaissance sculpture while walking down a long, narrow corridor of his own design. In this position, one knee is bent, and weight is shifted to the opposing hip. Trying to walk while holding the pose of Donatello's David is absurd and comical, but there is also a menacing discomfort to Walk with Contrapposto. With both hands behind his head, Nauman resembles a prisoner; the video camera positioned high above him might be a surveillance device. He elected to show the corridor without the video at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1969, inviting viewers to traverse it. Nauman removed himself from the piece yet maintained a claustrophobic sense of control: "It's another way of limiting the situation so that someone else can be a performer, but he can do only what I want him to do," he said."

Flour Arrangements, a photo series showing Bruce Nauman pushing some piles of flour around on the floor. He uses his body by treating it like material for his art. Nauman committed himself to making one ephemeral flour sculpture each day for over a month.

Flour Arrangements, a photo series showing Bruce Nauman pushing some piles of flour around on the floor. He uses his body by treating it like material for his art. Nauman committed himself to making one ephemeral flour sculpture each day for over a month.

Nauman shot two films in 1965, and despite their rudimentary execution they make a compelling diptych. Manipulating the T-Bar (1965) shows the artist delineating what would become his basic studio practice, arranging and rearranging a sculptural form within the constrained architectural parameters of the studio. Film of an actor pretending to be myself making a tape of the sound effects for the film “Manipulating the T-Bar,” on the other hand, introduces what would become Nauman’s consistent artistic persona: the absent presence.