Directing

Bruce Nauman

Born December 6, 1941 (age 84)

Bruce Nauman is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico.

Known For

Pinchneck

Pinchneck · 1968

Experimental short by Bruce Nauman.

Anthro / Socio

Anthro / Socio · 1991

On three projection surfaces and six monitors, one sees the head of a man shown in different takes. While continually revolving about his own axis, in a variety of tonalities he sings «FEED ME/ EAT ME/ ANTHROPOLOGY,» «HELP ME/ HURT ME/ SOCIOLOGY,» and «FEED ME, HELP ME, EAT ME, HURT ME». In order to grasp the full effect of the installation «Anthro/Socio,» the space has to be entered. The calls heard from different directions irritate as much as the contradictory demands, aimed at the simplest of bodily needs and questioning them at the same time. The repetition of the alarming singsong, and multiple video shots of the singer, also create a disturbing moment. In «Anthro/ Socio,» not only because of the all-encompassing sensual experience does the viewer become part of the artwork; the installation also encourages viewers to give thought to the inherent qualities of subjects and objects, and to human beings in society.

Bouncing Balls

Bouncing Balls · 1969

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.

No, No

“Two color monitors placed in the window played one of Nauman’s most recent videos, that of a clown jumping up and down shouting ‘No, No, No, No!’ endlessly. Nauman’s videos confront the viewer with behavior normally thought unacceptable. The clown’s simple declarative statement takes on new meaning and creates tension and anxiety for the viewer.” The New Museum Annual Report, 1988

Flour Arrangements

Flour Arrangements · 1967

Flour Arrangements

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.

Lip Sync

Lip Sync · 1969

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.

Pulling Mouth

This is one of the "Slo-Mo" series of films Nauman shot. Here he distorts his mouth with his fingers for the duration of the film in an inverted, close-up image.

The Bruce Nauman Story

The Bruce Nauman Story · 1968

The Bruce Nauman Story

Creative portrait of the artist Bruce Nauman.

Filmography

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Pinchneck

Pinchneck · 1968

Experimental short by Bruce Nauman.

Director

Anthro / Socio

Anthro / Socio · 1991

On three projection surfaces and six monitors, one sees the head of a man shown in different takes. While continually revolving about his own axis, in a variety of tonalities he sings «FEED ME/ EAT ME/ ANTHROPOLOGY,» «HELP ME/ HURT ME/ SOCIOLOGY,» and «FEED ME, HELP ME, EAT ME, HURT ME». In order to grasp the full effect of the installation «Anthro/Socio,» the space has to be entered. The calls heard from different directions irritate as much as the contradictory demands, aimed at the simplest of bodily needs and questioning them at the same time. The repetition of the alarming singsong, and multiple video shots of the singer, also create a disturbing moment. In «Anthro/ Socio,» not only because of the all-encompassing sensual experience does the viewer become part of the artwork; the installation also encourages viewers to give thought to the inherent qualities of subjects and objects, and to human beings in society.

Director

Bouncing Balls

Bouncing Balls · 1969

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.

Director

No, No

“Two color monitors placed in the window played one of Nauman’s most recent videos, that of a clown jumping up and down shouting ‘No, No, No, No!’ endlessly. Nauman’s videos confront the viewer with behavior normally thought unacceptable. The clown’s simple declarative statement takes on new meaning and creates tension and anxiety for the viewer.” The New Museum Annual Report, 1988

Director

Flour Arrangements

Flour Arrangements · 1967

Flour Arrangements

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.

Director

Lip Sync

Lip Sync · 1969

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.

Director

Pulling Mouth

This is one of the "Slo-Mo" series of films Nauman shot. Here he distorts his mouth with his fingers for the duration of the film in an inverted, close-up image.

Director

The Bruce Nauman Story

The Bruce Nauman Story · 1968

The Bruce Nauman Story

Creative portrait of the artist Bruce Nauman.

Pursuit

Pursuit · 1975

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.

Director

Black Balls

Black Balls · 1969

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.

Director

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg · 1988

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg

4 Artists: Robert Ryman, Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman, Susan Rothenberg acts as a collective portrait of creators linked only by their stated intention of expressing ideas through art. Unconnected to traditional concepts of beauty, storytelling or pictorial representation, the artists discuss the context of their art and how their work and the public's perception of it have changed over time. This film offers the rare opportunity to see a large body of work in their studios.—Michael Blackwood Productions

Seven Easy Pieces

Seven Easy Pieces · 2007

Seven Easy Pieces

MovieDocumentary

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.

Writer

Stamping in the Studio

Stamping in the Studio · 1968

Stamping in the Studio

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.

Director

Violent Incident: Man-Woman, Segment

Violent Incident: Man-Woman, Segment · 1986

Violent Incident: Man-Woman, Segment

In this video work Bruce Nauman explores violence, gender and behaviour. Set around a simple middle class dining table, the scene quickly escalates into a slapstick fight between a man and a woman. Their actions become increasingly more erratic and aggressive yet also ridiculous and cartoon-like as the video progresses. Nauman explores the ways in which anger can be provoked by others and questions the way we can react to them. Much like many of his other artworks, he employs the use of humour and exaggeration to explore serious and even dangerous topics - he produced this work as a result of his frustration with futile acts of violence in ordinary life. He explains, “The viewer is presented with a hypnotic repetition of pointlessly cruel and destructive violence which is both seductive and alienating.”

Director

Test Tape Fat Chance John Cage

Test Tape Fat Chance John Cage · 2001

Test Tape Fat Chance John Cage

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.

Director

Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square

Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a Square · 1968

Walking in an Exaggerated Manner around the Perimeter of a 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.

Director

Playing a Note on the Violin While I Walk Around in the Studio

Playing a Note on the Violin While I Walk Around in the Studio · 1968

Playing a Note on the Violin While I Walk Around in the Studio

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]

Director

Good Boy Bad Boy

Good Boy Bad Boy · 1985

Good Boy Bad Boy

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.

Director

For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and finger)

For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and finger) · 2010

For Beginners (all the combinations of the thumb and finger)

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

Director

Clown Torture: Clown with Goldfish

Clown Torture: Clown with Goldfish · 1987

Clown Torture: Clown with Goldfish

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.

Director

Manipulating the T-Bar

Manipulating the T-Bar · 1966

Manipulating the T-Bar

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.

Director

Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk)

Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk) · 1968

Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk)

MovieDocumentary

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.

Director

Contrapposto Studies, I through VII

Contrapposto Studies, I through VII · 2015

Contrapposto Studies, I through VII

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.

Director

Manipulating a Fluorescent Tube

Manipulating a Fluorescent Tube · 1969

Manipulating a Fluorescent Tube

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.

Director