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Bruce Nauman, Art Provocateur, Returns. Are You Ready? Bruce Nauman, Art Provocateur, Returns. Are You Ready?
(about 3 hours later)
GALISTEO, N.M. — Squirrels had chewed through the internet cables, and cell service is never very good this far from Santa Fe, half an hour out on the sparsely inhabited high desert. So the artist Bruce Nauman had few distractions, which is the way he has liked it for more 30 years, since moving to rural New Mexico from Los Angeles, away from an art world that has coveted him with an ardor he seems to need to hold at arm’s length. GALISTEO, N.M. — Squirrels had chewed through the internet cables, and cell service is never very good this far from Santa Fe, half an hour out on the sparsely inhabited high desert. So the artist Bruce Nauman had few distractions, which is the way he has liked it for more than 30 years, since moving to rural New Mexico from Los Angeles, away from an art world that has coveted him with an ardor he seems to need to hold at arm’s length.
He and the painter Susan Rothenberg, his wife, have lived here on several hundred acres since 1989. Their adobe house is humble and plain, not with a Donald Judd just-so plainness but a middle-class American one: a large TV on which they were watching the Olympics when I arrived; a jigsaw puzzle in progress on the kitchen table; a friendly beige mutt waiting for lunch from a big plastic bin of dog food near the kitchen.He and the painter Susan Rothenberg, his wife, have lived here on several hundred acres since 1989. Their adobe house is humble and plain, not with a Donald Judd just-so plainness but a middle-class American one: a large TV on which they were watching the Olympics when I arrived; a jigsaw puzzle in progress on the kitchen table; a friendly beige mutt waiting for lunch from a big plastic bin of dog food near the kitchen.
But this picture is complicated considerably by what happens just a stone’s throw from the house, in Mr. Nauman’s studio, from which some of the most powerful, disturbing, visceral work of the late 20th and early 21st century has emerged. Mr. Nauman, 74, who works in an eclectic mix of sculpture, video, sound, installation and drawing, hasn’t produced a major new piece since he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2009. But beginning this week at the Sperone Westwater gallery on the Bowery and Sept. 18 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he debuts “Contrapposto Studies,” multipart video and sound works that unite a late-career classicism with a mortal ferocity that demands attention — and will probably make it hard for many people to watch for long.But this picture is complicated considerably by what happens just a stone’s throw from the house, in Mr. Nauman’s studio, from which some of the most powerful, disturbing, visceral work of the late 20th and early 21st century has emerged. Mr. Nauman, 74, who works in an eclectic mix of sculpture, video, sound, installation and drawing, hasn’t produced a major new piece since he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2009. But beginning this week at the Sperone Westwater gallery on the Bowery and Sept. 18 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, he debuts “Contrapposto Studies,” multipart video and sound works that unite a late-career classicism with a mortal ferocity that demands attention — and will probably make it hard for many people to watch for long.
Mr. Nauman’s work has rarely been easy to take, with its mix of brutal humor and raw, formal beauty — sculptures in the form of claustrophobically narrow corridors, where those who enter are watched over by surveillance cameras; a candy-colored blinking neon showing a stick figure being hanged and getting an erection; a video showing a clown on his back, screaming “No! No! No!” at an unseen tormentor. The curator Paul Schimmel once wrote, with little exaggeration, that Mr. Nauman’s work “has baited, controlled, bored, infuriated, scared, insulted, angered, imperiled, experimented with and manipulated us — his viewers — into experiencing his work within his parameters.”Mr. Nauman’s work has rarely been easy to take, with its mix of brutal humor and raw, formal beauty — sculptures in the form of claustrophobically narrow corridors, where those who enter are watched over by surveillance cameras; a candy-colored blinking neon showing a stick figure being hanged and getting an erection; a video showing a clown on his back, screaming “No! No! No!” at an unseen tormentor. The curator Paul Schimmel once wrote, with little exaggeration, that Mr. Nauman’s work “has baited, controlled, bored, infuriated, scared, insulted, angered, imperiled, experimented with and manipulated us — his viewers — into experiencing his work within his parameters.”
The new work — which at its heart simply shows a man in jeans and a loose white T-shirt walking to and fro — is unusual in two respects: one, because he films his own body, which he hasn’t done in many years (he uses actors and acquaintances in most of his videos); two, because he is revisiting an older work, something Mr. Nauman, restive by nature, almost never does.The new work — which at its heart simply shows a man in jeans and a loose white T-shirt walking to and fro — is unusual in two respects: one, because he films his own body, which he hasn’t done in many years (he uses actors and acquaintances in most of his videos); two, because he is revisiting an older work, something Mr. Nauman, restive by nature, almost never does.
In 1968, using portable camera technology new at the time, he made a video titled “Walk With Contrapposto,” shot inside a studio in Southampton, N.Y., that he had borrowed from the artists Roy Lichtenstein and Paul Waldman. His idea was to take the contrapposto pose — the classical stance, revived by Renaissance artists, in which the figure stands with the weight placed on one foot, giving the hips and shoulders an elegant torque (Michelangelo’s David is the textbook example) — and put it into motion.In 1968, using portable camera technology new at the time, he made a video titled “Walk With Contrapposto,” shot inside a studio in Southampton, N.Y., that he had borrowed from the artists Roy Lichtenstein and Paul Waldman. His idea was to take the contrapposto pose — the classical stance, revived by Renaissance artists, in which the figure stands with the weight placed on one foot, giving the hips and shoulders an elegant torque (Michelangelo’s David is the textbook example) — and put it into motion.
The result is not elegant in the least. It is comical, almost painful-looking. The young Mr. Nauman, 27, walks slowly and with great effort for an hour along a narrow corridor he built for himself. With each step, he juts out his hips, cocking his shoulders left and right while holding his hands behind his head — an obsessive translation of art into life that is unaccountably compelling to watch and now resides in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and other important institutions.The result is not elegant in the least. It is comical, almost painful-looking. The young Mr. Nauman, 27, walks slowly and with great effort for an hour along a narrow corridor he built for himself. With each step, he juts out his hips, cocking his shoulders left and right while holding his hands behind his head — an obsessive translation of art into life that is unaccountably compelling to watch and now resides in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and other important institutions.
He hadn’t seen the video for years, and he said that when he watched it again several months ago his first reaction was “plain embarrassment.”He hadn’t seen the video for years, and he said that when he watched it again several months ago his first reaction was “plain embarrassment.”
Many of his peers in the tumultuous ’60s, like Vito Acconci and Carolee Schneemann, created performances and videos that involved their bodies, sometimes naked, pushing viewers up against the limits of tolerance, and Mr. Nauman (pronounced NOW-man) did some work of his own in this vein — a deadpan film of him bouncing his testicles with one hand for example. But he was never a natural at it.Many of his peers in the tumultuous ’60s, like Vito Acconci and Carolee Schneemann, created performances and videos that involved their bodies, sometimes naked, pushing viewers up against the limits of tolerance, and Mr. Nauman (pronounced NOW-man) did some work of his own in this vein — a deadpan film of him bouncing his testicles with one hand for example. But he was never a natural at it.
“Midwestern guy,” he said dryly during a long afternoon interview, folding his hands over his belly like a church deacon. (His father worked for General Electric, and he grew up all over the Midwest, mostly in Indiana and Wisconsin; he left for California in 1964 to pursue graduate art studies.)“Midwestern guy,” he said dryly during a long afternoon interview, folding his hands over his belly like a church deacon. (His father worked for General Electric, and he grew up all over the Midwest, mostly in Indiana and Wisconsin; he left for California in 1964 to pursue graduate art studies.)
“It was a period when I was thinking about how much you expose yourself when you make work,” he said. “A lot of the tension is between what you show and what you don’t show. I think when I was making those works, I was exposing a lot more than I was comfortable with — but I did it.”“It was a period when I was thinking about how much you expose yourself when you make work,” he said. “A lot of the tension is between what you show and what you don’t show. I think when I was making those works, I was exposing a lot more than I was comfortable with — but I did it.”
Thinking about the contrapposto walk again, he said, he began to want something out of the idea that he hadn’t been able to get in 1968. Partly, this was formal. He wanted to refilm it so that he could fragment his body and the sound into pieces, and so that his body would appear to stay stationary “while the architecture moved around it.” (The videographer Bruce Hamilton, who worked with him for months, accomplished this last part with a zoom lens.)Thinking about the contrapposto walk again, he said, he began to want something out of the idea that he hadn’t been able to get in 1968. Partly, this was formal. He wanted to refilm it so that he could fragment his body and the sound into pieces, and so that his body would appear to stay stationary “while the architecture moved around it.” (The videographer Bruce Hamilton, who worked with him for months, accomplished this last part with a zoom lens.)
But the renewed interest, he said, was also about the human body, his in particular. “I realized it wasn’t abstract,” he said of the original video. “There’s a lot of emotional content when you use your body, because it’s your body.”But the renewed interest, he said, was also about the human body, his in particular. “I realized it wasn’t abstract,” he said of the original video. “There’s a lot of emotional content when you use your body, because it’s your body.”
In the new work, he is dressed just as he was in 1968. But his body is almost half a century older, his torso thicker, his hips and shoulders far less flexible, the grating amplified scuff of his feet on the floor decidedly more Sisyphean. And unstated in the piece’s context is that Mr. Nauman had been battling cancer not long before making it. “The radiation caused some nerve damage that left me with a loss of feeling in my feet that I was just getting back,” he said.In the new work, he is dressed just as he was in 1968. But his body is almost half a century older, his torso thicker, his hips and shoulders far less flexible, the grating amplified scuff of his feet on the floor decidedly more Sisyphean. And unstated in the piece’s context is that Mr. Nauman had been battling cancer not long before making it. “The radiation caused some nerve damage that left me with a loss of feeling in my feet that I was just getting back,” he said.
He mentioned being sick only in passing, and if illness or mortality figured into his thinking about the piece, you won’t hear it from him. Mr. Nauman is constitutionally averse to talking about meaning or motivation, a reticence he can take to unusual lengths in the rare interviews he has agreed to over a long career.He mentioned being sick only in passing, and if illness or mortality figured into his thinking about the piece, you won’t hear it from him. Mr. Nauman is constitutionally averse to talking about meaning or motivation, a reticence he can take to unusual lengths in the rare interviews he has agreed to over a long career.
Carlos Basualdo, curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum and the organizer of the new show, along with Erica F. Battle, recalled that when he was overseeing Mr. Nauman’s exhibition in Venice, he asked Mr. Nauman over dinner about his studio, which he is known to keep in extreme disarray.Carlos Basualdo, curator of contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum and the organizer of the new show, along with Erica F. Battle, recalled that when he was overseeing Mr. Nauman’s exhibition in Venice, he asked Mr. Nauman over dinner about his studio, which he is known to keep in extreme disarray.
“I was a little bit tipsy,” Mr. Basualdo recalled, “and I got the courage to ask him if the mess in the studio was something that he was doing on purpose, in order to think, or if it was maybe more accidental. I think I used the word unconscious. He looked at me, and he smiled and said, ‘Carlos, I think we’ve drunk too much.’”“I was a little bit tipsy,” Mr. Basualdo recalled, “and I got the courage to ask him if the mess in the studio was something that he was doing on purpose, in order to think, or if it was maybe more accidental. I think I used the word unconscious. He looked at me, and he smiled and said, ‘Carlos, I think we’ve drunk too much.’”
Mr. Nauman was maybe a little more forthcoming during our recent conversation, laid-back and talkative without ever volunteering much. Before a lunch of supermarket rotisserie chicken that he carved up, with cheese, bread and apples, we spent time in his studio, a plain rectangular metal barn of the type farmers use for storing tractors. It was indeed a spectacular wreck, as if it had been ransacked by a drug cartel the night before: torn boxes and strewn packing material, cords and hoses, power tools, speakers, old newspapers, plus a worn copy of William Gaddis’s “The Recognitions” across from an elegant hand-tooled saddle on a saddle blanket.Mr. Nauman was maybe a little more forthcoming during our recent conversation, laid-back and talkative without ever volunteering much. Before a lunch of supermarket rotisserie chicken that he carved up, with cheese, bread and apples, we spent time in his studio, a plain rectangular metal barn of the type farmers use for storing tractors. It was indeed a spectacular wreck, as if it had been ransacked by a drug cartel the night before: torn boxes and strewn packing material, cords and hoses, power tools, speakers, old newspapers, plus a worn copy of William Gaddis’s “The Recognitions” across from an elegant hand-tooled saddle on a saddle blanket.
Outside in a paddock stood two retired brood mares and a gelding, reminders of Mr. Nauman’s side business for many years, raising and training cattle horses, a physical trade he loved and one that occupied him when art ideas weren’t coming. His love for New Mexico is harder for him to explain. But Ms. Rothenberg, who was stretching a canvas in her studio that afternoon, offered a theory, via Mr. Nauman’s mother, Genevieve. “She reminds him that he used to come here to the mountains to camp when he was a Boy Scout,” she said. “She thinks that’s why he loves it so much.”Outside in a paddock stood two retired brood mares and a gelding, reminders of Mr. Nauman’s side business for many years, raising and training cattle horses, a physical trade he loved and one that occupied him when art ideas weren’t coming. His love for New Mexico is harder for him to explain. But Ms. Rothenberg, who was stretching a canvas in her studio that afternoon, offered a theory, via Mr. Nauman’s mother, Genevieve. “She reminds him that he used to come here to the mountains to camp when he was a Boy Scout,” she said. “She thinks that’s why he loves it so much.”
Mr. Nauman works mostly alone in his studio, except for Wednesdays, when his studio manager, Juliet Myers, is there. Standing inside, surveying the debris, he smiled and said, “When I need to do something, I push stuff aside and make a path.”Mr. Nauman works mostly alone in his studio, except for Wednesdays, when his studio manager, Juliet Myers, is there. Standing inside, surveying the debris, he smiled and said, “When I need to do something, I push stuff aside and make a path.”
The idea of the studio has always been at the heart of Mr. Nauman’s work. He once told an interviewer, with syllogistic bluntness, “If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.” At least early on, the harshness of his work sprang from a desire, as a Los Angeles artist, to be noticed by the New York art world. “I felt like I had to be very aggressive,” he said. “I wanted something you had to really pay attention to.” (It worked; the prominent dealer Leo Castelli began representing him when he was 26.)The idea of the studio has always been at the heart of Mr. Nauman’s work. He once told an interviewer, with syllogistic bluntness, “If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.” At least early on, the harshness of his work sprang from a desire, as a Los Angeles artist, to be noticed by the New York art world. “I felt like I had to be very aggressive,” he said. “I wanted something you had to really pay attention to.” (It worked; the prominent dealer Leo Castelli began representing him when he was 26.)
But the intensity stemmed mostly from a feeling that art should answer to a kind of moral imperative. The closest he has come to articulating this was in an interview with the curator Joan Simon in 1988, when he said that “art ought to have a moral value, a moral stance” and added that his work “comes out of being frustrated about the human condition. And how people refuse to understand other people.”But the intensity stemmed mostly from a feeling that art should answer to a kind of moral imperative. The closest he has come to articulating this was in an interview with the curator Joan Simon in 1988, when he said that “art ought to have a moral value, a moral stance” and added that his work “comes out of being frustrated about the human condition. And how people refuse to understand other people.”
When I asked him about this, he detoured into a story, about an angry Vietnam veteran who confronted him once in a class at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, grabbing his shirt. The veteran made chaotic abstract paintings and explained to Mr. Nauman that some of them represented an incident he experienced as a helicopter pilot, when he left a group of South Vietnamese soldiers at a location and returned later to find them all dead, their severed heads arranged on posts. “I think painting saved that guy’s life,” he said. “If he hadn’t done that, he would have probably gone crazy.”When I asked him about this, he detoured into a story, about an angry Vietnam veteran who confronted him once in a class at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, grabbing his shirt. The veteran made chaotic abstract paintings and explained to Mr. Nauman that some of them represented an incident he experienced as a helicopter pilot, when he left a group of South Vietnamese soldiers at a location and returned later to find them all dead, their severed heads arranged on posts. “I think painting saved that guy’s life,” he said. “If he hadn’t done that, he would have probably gone crazy.”
Mr. Nauman also just seems to have a higher threshold for darkness than many people. Of the clown piece I mentioned earlier, “Clown Torture,” from 1987, he told me: “A lot of people can’t take it — but I still think it’s kind of nifty, pretty funny.” (No clowns were actually tortured in its making.) Such pieces have infuriated some critics to no end. Robert Hughes, in Time magazine, wrote that Mr. Nauman’s work was “so dumb you can’t guess whether its dumbness is genuine or feigned.” But by and large he has rarely been out of favor, and his work seems only to gain visibility in public collections. In 2018, the Museum of Modern Art and the Schaulager in Basel, Switzerland, will host a retrospective, the first in more than 20 years.Mr. Nauman also just seems to have a higher threshold for darkness than many people. Of the clown piece I mentioned earlier, “Clown Torture,” from 1987, he told me: “A lot of people can’t take it — but I still think it’s kind of nifty, pretty funny.” (No clowns were actually tortured in its making.) Such pieces have infuriated some critics to no end. Robert Hughes, in Time magazine, wrote that Mr. Nauman’s work was “so dumb you can’t guess whether its dumbness is genuine or feigned.” But by and large he has rarely been out of favor, and his work seems only to gain visibility in public collections. In 2018, the Museum of Modern Art and the Schaulager in Basel, Switzerland, will host a retrospective, the first in more than 20 years.
I vividly remember the earlier retrospective when it came to the Modern in 1995, four years after I moved to New York. I was seeing art voraciously but without much context, and the Nauman show connected many dots — largely because so much work being done in the ’90s seemed to follow closely in its wake, for better and worse. Its cold-eyed fury made me think of Goya, and it jibed with a lot of my favorite literature, mostly Beckett, whose work has been influential for Mr. Nauman. After I left the museum, the city and everything around me felt profoundly different for days — menacing and absurd, like a demented carnival, but also more vital and alive.I vividly remember the earlier retrospective when it came to the Modern in 1995, four years after I moved to New York. I was seeing art voraciously but without much context, and the Nauman show connected many dots — largely because so much work being done in the ’90s seemed to follow closely in its wake, for better and worse. Its cold-eyed fury made me think of Goya, and it jibed with a lot of my favorite literature, mostly Beckett, whose work has been influential for Mr. Nauman. After I left the museum, the city and everything around me felt profoundly different for days — menacing and absurd, like a demented carnival, but also more vital and alive.
Over the last 15 years or so, Mr. Nauman’s work has gotten quieter, more wistful, in many respects. But the contrapposto work turns up the volume again. “It will be hard to stand in the room with it,” Mr. Basualdo said. “I think it will be almost unbearable.”Over the last 15 years or so, Mr. Nauman’s work has gotten quieter, more wistful, in many respects. But the contrapposto work turns up the volume again. “It will be hard to stand in the room with it,” Mr. Basualdo said. “I think it will be almost unbearable.”
Getting up from his chair late in the interview to make some sugar water for the hummingbird feeders outside his kitchen window, Mr. Nauman said he never thought about art in such terms.Getting up from his chair late in the interview to make some sugar water for the hummingbird feeders outside his kitchen window, Mr. Nauman said he never thought about art in such terms.
“I haven’t always practiced this, but I think work needs to be available — or should be available — to people on any level, coming at it from wherever they come,” he said. “I’m questioning things as much for myself as for anybody.”“I haven’t always practiced this, but I think work needs to be available — or should be available — to people on any level, coming at it from wherever they come,” he said. “I’m questioning things as much for myself as for anybody.”