Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941, in Fort Wayne, Indiana) is a contemporary American artist. His pluralistic practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing and performance. He is widely acknowledged as one of the most important living artists.

Life and Work

He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin, and art with William T. Wiley and Robert Arneson at the University of California in Davis. He worked as an assistant to Wayne Thiebaud and in 1966 he became a teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 1968 he met the singer and perfomance artist Meredith Monk and signed with the dealer Leo Castelli. In the 1980s he moved to New Mexico. Much of his work is characterised by an interest in language which often manifests itself in a playful, mischievous manner. For example, the neon Run From Fear- Fun From Rear, or the photograph Bound To Fail which literalises the title phrase and shows the artist's arms tied behind his back. There are however, very serious concerns at the heart of the work. Nauman seems to be interested in the nature of communication and the inherent problems of language, as well as the role of the artist as supposed communicator and manipulator of visual language. In 1999 he received the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale. In 2004 he created his work Raw Materials at the Tate Modern.

Nauman cites Samuel Beckett, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Cage, Philip Glass, La Monte Young and Meredith Monk as major influences on his work.

Works

Some of his better-known works include:

1. Clown Torture - in separate stacked video screens, a clown screaming "No" repeatedly, a clown telling an annoying child's joke, a clown balancing goldfish bowls, and a clown sitting on a public toilet.
2. Vices and Virtues (1988) - Atop a laboratory building at University of California San 3. Diego, neon signs seven feet tall, alternating the seven vices and seven virtues: FAITH/LUST, HOPE/ENVY, CHARITY/SLOTH, PRUDENCE/PRIDE, JUSTICE/AVARICE, TEMPERANCE/GLUTTONY, and FORTITUDE/ANGER.
3. The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths - a spiraling neon sign with this slogan.
4. Setting a Good Corner - looping video of the artist setting a corner fencepost.
5. World Peace - five projectors or video players displaying four women and a man each speaking simultaneous monologues about world peace.

The paintings are the excellent portrayal of the events and scenes that we see around us. The painters are the best cameras of the world. They reproduce many different types of pictures. They even draw imaginary pictures that do not exist in this world. We tend to use both thinned oil paints and dense oil paints. Masterpieces can be dyed more than once, but each time it may be different from the existing paintings.h

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