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Bruce Nauman |
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Perhaps some of my reticence in singing casual praises to Bruce Nauman is due to the fact that I’ve never seen enough of his work at one time. Well, this fine Montreal exhibition resolved that problem. Elusive Signs, Bruce Nauman Works With Light, organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum, was a treat and turned out to be a complete life survey. Though there is no doubt that Mr. Nauman is one of the leading figures in contemporary art, I have never been sure why he is quite so prominant. I don’t say that because of any fault in the work, I simply wonder why some of his peers are less well known. Other artists of the time worked with body and identity, the role of language, or spatial awareness like he has. Didn’t they? Other artists made single-channel video and photo-text. Didn’t they? Perhaps it is true that he actually helped develop installation art following on the heels of Beuys. If that is the case, it's a great contribution on its own. Where would we be without the installation art? We would still be arguing about canvas and plinths instead of dematerialization. I purposefully pose these questions because his influence can be seen everywhere. This influence can be seen daily in neon knock-offs by artists all over the world and in performance pieces by any graduate video department. Is it due in some way to cumulative critical success well after the early work? Is it curatorial favor? Perhaps his reputation stems from the fact that he was working as a conceptual, mixed media, “non-studio” artist well before it was in vogue or even financially possible. Today, to the concept-laden art world he has become a touchtone, a direct connection to those major shifts of practice from the late 60s forward. He is also, for whatever reason, one of the few artists of that period that is asked to make work for the Venice Biennale, not to mention the massive Turbine Hall at the ultra-hip Tate Modern. In Montreal, the neon signs were given plenty of room to do their thing and they were magical and concise. It felt as if the original intent of the work was in evidence; and that the intent was timeless. On top of that, the neon didn’t simply resonate as art; it looked totally up to date! That is surprising for work of that period even if you examine his close connection to present day art practice. What I’d never had the chance to notice before was his linguistic flair. He used palindromes like RAW/WAR; especially pertinant, and inversions like Run from Fear/Fun from Rear and anagrams such as None Sing Neon Sign. These works were not laden with heavy significance but simply played on how the viewer uses language to read the pieces. His layering of the phrases on top of one another is simplicity itself and underscores binary meaning. The largest sign is a masterwork in neon. One Hundred Live and Die (1984) has 100 separate imperative phrases lighting up one at a time in sequence until it reaches the point where they all light up at once! It is interesting to note how this particular form of wordplay has had an influence all its own. Many artists in the 1980s certainly took their cue from Nauman and now the neo-conceptual crew follow suit. It is sometimes about putting art where it not normally found and sometimes about using words in a new way to show gaps or faults in understanding or speech: our most common way of communicating. So he lives by his assertion that an artist helps the world by revealing mystical truths, a neon-text work from 1966 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Is the neon sculpture or what? He made that question irrelevant some time ago. In addition to the oft-quoted neon, Elusive Signs includes several light installations that I had not experienced; The Hellman Gallery Parallelogram is a playful cramped space with odd green fluorescent lighting. Not particularly user-friendly and well ahead of its time in 1971, it comes off as a little historical now. The Montreal curator, Sandra Grant Marchand, added video selections from the 1960s to 1990s to round off the survey and has created a whole survey of all Nauman’s groundbreaking contributions. The seminal video is simple and documents live performances often not making immediate sense. These you can compare to the newer video installations which are downright aggressive. The Clown Torture piece is from 1987 and hasn’t aged a day. It is a bit Paul McCarthy. The new serious audio mayhem is now Nauman’s speciality as indicated by the video installation from 1992, Anthro/Socio (Rhinde spinning). You need a drink after that. Though it less clear how the installations relate
to the video or the neon, that is par nowadays. In searching for his initial
impetus, it helps to keep in mind his broad thesis of making art because
he is “frustrated with the human condition,” which seems another
thoroughly contemporary hallmark which we can all relate to more than
ever! One Hundred Fish Fountain
(2005) is the lynchpin of the late work. Again, sound is used, but this
time with waterfalls and cast fish. It is beautiful to spend time with.
So, if you were thinking "he’s Bruce Nauman, the neon guy,"
think again. Seeing Elusive Signs
explains exactly how much his influence is genuine and why it is so wide
ranging. He set the template for the artist in the 21st century. The question
about those who emulate him becomes: Are they Neo-Nauman or was he Proto-Contemporary? Back to InLiquid's Commentary section index © 2007 James Rosenthal and InLiquid.com; image copyright ©Bruce Nauman - SODRAC (2007) |
