Bruce Nauman defies the traditional notion that an artist should have one signature style and a visually unified oeuvre. Since the mid-1960s the artist has created an open-ended body of work that includes fiberglass sculptures, abstract body casts, performances, films, neon wall reliefs, interactive environments, videos, and motorized carousels displaying cast-aluminum animal carcasses. If anything links such diverse endeavors, it is Nauman’s insistence that aesthetic experience supersedes the actual object in importance. Perception itself—the viewer’s encounter with his or her body and mind in relation to the art object—can be interpreted as the subject matter of Nauman’s work. Using puns, claustrophobic passageways with surveillance cameras, and videotaped recitations of bad jokes, he has created situations that are physically or intellectually disorienting, forcing viewers to confront their own experiential thresholds.

Nauman adopted neon signage during the 1960s (perhaps in response to Pop art) to illustrate his Duchampian word plays. None Sing Neon Sign is an anagram that, like Nauman’s other semiotically playful neon pieces—Raw War and Run from Fear/Fun from Rear, for example—underscores the arbitrary relationship between a word’s definition, what it sounds like, and what it looks like. A circular sign from 1967 of the spiraling neon phrase THE TRUE ARTIST HELPS THE WORLD BY REVEALING MYSTIC TRUTHS suggests, in retrospect and with irony, that these truths may be nothing more than the subtle distinctions between aesthetic illusion, artistic hype, and meaning.

Nauman enforces the contrast between the perceptual and physical experience of space in his sculptures and installations. Looking at the brilliant color emanating from Green Light Corridor prompts quite a different phenomenological experience than does maneuvering through its narrow confines. Lighted Performance [more] Box provokes another experiential situation. As a rectangular column, it resembles the quintessential unitary Minimalist sculpture, yet the square of light cast on the ceiling from the lamp encased inside alters one’s reading of the piece: the sense of a hidden, unattainable space, one that can only be experienced vicariously, is evoked. Thus, the performance alluded to in the title is only a private, conceptual act, initiated when viewers attempt to mentally project their own bodies into this implied interior place.

Nancy Spector

Purchased from Galleria Sperone, Milan, by Panza in 1970; purchased by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1991.

Solo
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bruce Nauman: Work from 1965 to 1972, December 19, 1972–February 18, 1973. Traveled to Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March 29–May 13, 1973; Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Bruce Nauman: Werk van negentienvijfenzestig tot negentientweeënzeventig, October 12–November 25, 1973. Catalogue with essays by Jane Livingston and Marcia Tucker: p. 97 (illus., cat. no. 56). Dutch edition with essay by Livingston: unpag. (illus., cat. no. 56).

Group
Finch College Museum of Art, New York, Art in Process IV, December 11, 1969–January 26, 1970. Catalogue, p.29.

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The New Sculpture 1965–75: Between Geometry and Gesture, February 20–June 3, 1990. Traveled to The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, February 17–July 7, 1991. Catalogue edited by Richard Armstrong and Richard Marshall with essays by Armstrong, John G. Hanhardt, and Robert Pincus-Witten; pp. 148 (illus.), 353.

Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, Sala BBK, and Sala de Exposiciones Rekalde, Bilbao, Berriaren Tradizioa: Guggenheim Bildumako Maisu-Lanak 1945–1990/La tradición de lo nuevo: Obras maestras de la Colección Guggenheim 1945–1990, May 10–July 15, 1995. Catalogue in Basque and Spanish, pp. 122 (cat. no. 32), 123 (illus.), 177–78.

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Venezia/Venice: California Art from the Panza Collection at the Guggenehim Museum, September 2, 2000–January 1, 2001.

van Bruggen, Coosje. Bruce Nauman. New York: Rizzoli, 1988, p. 275.

Celant, Germano. Das Bild einer Geschichte 1956/1976, p. 298 (illus.).

Knight, Christopher. Art of the Sixties and Seventies, pp. 182 (illus.), 267. Revised and expanded English edition: pp. 222 (illus.), 308. French edition: pp. 182 (illus.), 267. Italian edition: pp. 182 (illus.), 267. Revised and expanded Italian edition: pp. 222 (illus.), 308.

Simon, Joan. Catalogue raisonné. In Simon, ed. Bruce Nauman (exh. cat.). Minneapolis: Walker Art Center; New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1994, p. 233 (illus., cat. no. 147). (Two separate publications with this title, one of which includes the catalogue raisonné, were produced by the Walker Art Center.)

———. “Nauman Variations: Back to the Future.” In Nicholas Serota and Joanna Skipwith, eds. Bruce Nauman (exh. cat.). London: Trustees of the Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1986. Additional essay by Jean-Christophe Ammann; p. 17 (illus.). French edition: Bruce Nauman, Paris: Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1986, reference in Simon, “Les Variations Nauman: Retour au Futur,” p. 17 (illus.), p. 18. Swiss edition: Bruce Nauman: Werke von 1965 bis 1986. Basel: Kunsthalle Basel, 1986, reference in unpag. essay by Simon.

Spector, Nancy, ed. Guggenheim Museum Collection: A to Z. New York: Guggenheim Museum, 1992, 2d ed. 2001, p. 248, 249 (illus.).

Venice/Venezia: California Art from the Panza Collection at the Guggenehim Museum, New York: Guggenheim Museum, 2000. Catalogue in English and Italian, with essays by Germano Celant and Giuseppe Panza di Biumo; pp. 57, 61 (illus.).