World Peace 1994
Clown Torture 1987
Born in Indiana in 1941, Bruce Nauman has been known in America as one of the more innovative artists of his generation. He is especially known for his use and work with ordinary activities that produce art through his visions. He has shown us as an audience that art comes more from producing a product than the actual product. He has worked in the diverse mediums of video, film, sculpture, performance and installation. Through his artwork he has been able to spread messages about the journey from life to death in a spiritual as well as political manner. The idea of uncovering what are known as ‘mystic truths’ has inspired Nauman in his works and being able to connect his audience to such works. “My work comes out of being frustrated about the human condition and about how people refuse to understand other people,” reflects Nauman’s inspiration. Nauman found himself at a young age questioning daily activities and from these mundane activities he questioned the role of the artist in society and human condition. Through much of his art, Nauman approaches language with naivety, reordering words phrases and manipulating ordinary language. Meaning actually shifts in his restructuring to provoke greater understanding of the world and its relationships. A great example of this came in his display of RAW WAR drawn out from the three letters in blood red. The activist approach in 1968 was meant in protest of the Vietnam War. Nauman was actually a part of the artist activist group that mobilized with other citizens to help stop the war.
Nauman was well known for his effectiveness with neon’s as in his video installations. One notable installation was known as World Peace of 1994, which related to human condition. In this installation we find a room filled with five different monitors with speakers surrounding us. The command-like presentation by Nauman certainly affects its message are listeners of the display are forced to receive the information directly. Such a relation between language and control became a heavy part of Nauman’s work over the years. Language for Nauman was used as almost a behavior science that could be manipulated and forced onto those in the audience. Unlike his writings which presented much more of an open and vague meaning, his installations were quite direct.
Nauman, an artist known as a deformer, transformed banal workings into extraordinary character and meanings. Clown Torture of 1987 was a classic illustration of his strange transitional art form that was rather violent. Here he took the traditional birthday clown imagery and created five simultaneous screens. It’s a collection of color, motion and sound. The setting adds to the attraction as the screens are viewed in a darkened room to enhance the meaning coming from the sound. You find that only two of the monitors are right side up where the images become quite disorienting. The activity that occurs from every angle in the display makes the viewer feel as though they are the subject of investigation as well as the clown. The hinted messages of the clowns in the display, is to question insanity as well as political thought. The questioning of what is real and unreal in the creation of such clowns really drives the theme of the spectacle.
There is no doubt that Bruce Nauman like other artists use absurd forms of art to express and send different messages to their audience. After learning about Nauman and his techniques what was most captivating was how he stressed the workplace. Many artists create art for the end product and what physical production comes of their work. For Nauman and other artists it is their workspace that contains the art all around them. Mixed into his forms of art, there are pictures of Nauman creating such pieces in order to stress the process over the product. The medium of creation seems to be a really intricate part of Naumans artistic style and something that separated him from many other artists of his generation, who missed the importance of the artist’s environment. For this reason and the incredible ability of Nauman to manipulate words and integrate them into strong visual messages I would say that he is quite successful as an artist.
Visual Reference:
Bruce Nauman: Make Me Think Me
by: Tate Liverpool
