Bruce Nauman Flashing Lights in the Shadow of Doubt

Author(s): Robert Storr

Source: MoMA, No. 19 (Spring, 1995), pp. 5-9
Published by: The Museum of Modern Art
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4381284
Accessed: 24-10-2016 16:39 UTC

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 BRUCE U t N A UMIVI A N

FLASHING LIGHTS IN TH
SHADOW OF DOUBT
Robert Storr

This is a time of great public uncertainty in on

America;
some of the why is aatmat-
best talents work in their own backyard. Like
ter of debate. Unquestionably, signs of unease Robert Ryman,
are rife, whose retrospective
especially in the at The Museum of Modern Art
arts, which have rarely before been the focus of so
in I992-93 much
offered the popular
American public the first overall view of the
attention or been so embattled as they have become over the last painter's work since 1972, Nauman (whose last comprehensive
decade. Disquieted by the rapid social museum show in the United States also
and political changes going on around took place in 1972) is better known and
them and dismayed by what they see as more highly regarded abroad than in his
the frivolity or insularity of much of con- homeland.
temporary culture, people of all kinds are The pairing of these two artists is
calling for a return to art of high serious- more than circumstantial; its roots lie
ness that is consonant with the gravity of in the near-total opposition of their
our predicament. Those who mean it aims and approaches. While Ryman has
should look hard and long in the direc- pragmatically devoted himself to an art
tion of Bruce Nauman. of consistent procedure, apparent sim-
On first or even repeated encoun- plicity, and total serenity, Nauman has
ters, Nauman's disconcerting sculptural turned his equally methodical talents to
riddles and nerve-jangling challenges to the creation of formally disparate, visu-
the ear and mind may exacerbate one's ally hypnotic, profoundly disturbing,
sense of a world out of joint. In part that and frequently difficult to grasp images.
sense is due to simple unfamiliarity; In the context of widespread loss of
until now, relatively few people in this faith in the possibility of finding unal-
country have had the chance to follow loyed beauty in a strict modern manner,
the growth and development of Nau- Ryman's paintings keep their matter-of-
man's work over the thirty years of his fact promise of aesthetic transcendence.
career. This is because he belongs to a Against the same skeptical current,
type of rigorously experimental artist Nauman's multimedia art recasts the
that America breeds but only grudging- tragic in our own unheroic, even laugh-
ly nurtures. Moreover, he is a member able image. Reminding us that tragedy
of a particular generation of artists who is the drama of limitations, he specifies
came into their full powers in the late the extreme consequences of common
I960s under the brilliantly looming pres- flaws in character, and the common
ence of Abstract Expressionism and Pop intellectual
Neon Templates of the Left Half of My Body Taken at Ten-Inch Intervals. 1966. and perceptual lapses that
Neon tubing on clear glass tubing suspension frame. 70 x 9 x 6".
Art. As a result, during the past two Collection Philip Johnson. Exhibition copy.
condemn us to mutual misunderstand-
decades, many people have missed out Photo: courtesy Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. ing and self-deception. Rather than

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 reassuring us of certain values, Nauman's seriousness is proven by his than a candid recognition that the vocabulary of form had undergone
systematic doubt. That critical attitude is complemented by the a radical change. The new materials available to artists included not
belief that similar doubts harbored by his viewers are the sufficient only synthetics such as fiberglass and latex, which Nauman employed
(though imperfect) grounds for communication among people who, in his early abstract wall and floor pieces of I965-66 and later works
if they cannot entirely overcome their solitary bewilderment, can at of the I970s, but also neon, video, sound, and holography, the use
least recognize their obsession with basic but unknowable truths as of which Nauman helped pioneer. Yet if "the medium is the mes-
a shared human trait. sage," as Marshall McLuhan claimed in reference to such technolog-
This sounds like a tall order, and it is. Nauman's genius lies ical innovations, Nauman's principal medium has been the body, his
in the rendering of such philosophical questions into plain Ameri own or that of surrogates and even members of the public. The body
can English or its visual equivalent. As with most truly serious meant all the faculties humans possess, especially movement and
men-induding such speech. Hand to
influential kindred Mouth (I967) defines
spirits as artists H. C. this expressive range
Westerman and Mar- with stunning econ-
cel Duchamp and omy. Relying once
writer Samuel Beck- again on the hidden
ett-humor plays a meanings of a trite
crucial role in Nau- turn of phrase, this
man's thinking. Ini- sculpture not only
tially, his early work alludes to the precari-
seemed almost whim- ous livelihood of
sically off-hand. For artists but also consti-
example, Eleven tutes an aesthetic
Color Photographs equation relating the

(I966-67/I970) work of the hands to

consists of a group the workings of lan-
of staged images guage, the manipula-
illustrating a series of tion of matter to that
gestures, actions and of words.
verbal cliches. In From the outset,
Eating My Words, Nauman has thus
Nauman spreads been preoccupied
Untitled. 1967. Wax over plaster with rope. I7 x 26 x 4 ". Courtesy Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zurich.
jam on letters cut with what can be said
out of a loaf of white and what cannot, with
meaningful utterance, patent nonsense, and the uncommon se
bread; Feet of Clay shows his feet covered in clay; and Bound to Fail
that lies between them. His texts can be confrontational but rhe
shows his arms tied behind his back. Coffee Spilled Because the Cup Was
cally ambiguous, as in the combined plea and demand Please!
Too Hot depicts precisely what its title describes. At first glance, these
Pay/Attention/Please (I973)-in either case, whether plea or demand,
pictures seem like simple, indeed simple-minded visual puns. How-
ever, such obviously obvious word-play answers the question it he gets and holds our attention. On more than one occasion they
raises-is this art?-with a cheeky insistence-yes, it is art!-that mix Alice-in-Wonderland anagrams and all-boy wisecracks, as in the
borders on the aggressive. The sources of that aggression are traceable
neon Run from Fear/Fun from Rear (I972). Or they may invoke meta-
physical attitudes, as in another early neon The True Artist Helps the
to the pathos in some of the situations portrayed. Stupidly spilling cof-
fee whose temperature one misjudged equals frustration; clay feet
World by Revealing Mystic Truths (I967).
translate into the ludicrous exposure of one's defects; being tied up This last piece was made as a substitute for a beer sign that had
occupied one of the windows in a space Nauman rented as a studio.
equals helplessness. Each image is a comic metaphor for larger, pos-
sibly disastrous mistakes or inadequacies. In the wax sculpture Nauman's replacement was inspired by mixed feelings about the truth
Henry Moore Bound to Fail (I967), the impotence portrayed in theof the statement it made, and by his corollary assumption that the
photograph is explicitly linked to futile artistic struggle. At the sameonly way to test such a belief in art's mystic powers was to assert them,
time it signals the end of the monumental tradition represented by and find out what it was like to live in the presence of such a claim.
the British sculptor that was brought about by the rise of Nauman'sRather than employing commercial neon technology to take a dis-
cohort of Conceptual artists. tanced or ironic stance toward the statement's almost romantic con-
Nauman's reference to Moore, who was very much alive and viction, as the Pop artists might have done, Nauman used it to
active in the I960s, was less a claim of youthful triumph over old ways advertise his own ambivalence. Honky-tonk signage thus becomes an

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emblem of vatic illumination; a question without a question mark or word, through puzzled fascination with a shape, surface, or opti-
replaces a slogan with an implicit exclamation point. cal illusion, to horrified amusement or frightened recoil from noise,
In Nauman's environments, texts become sounds, while the flashing light, or possible physical entrapment. These responses all
installations' carefully calibrated confines frame and dictate motion.contribute to the work's meaning, and few occur without the com-
Situationally transposed and amplified, the defiant note in his early
plications added by implicit contrary readings. Before one can "get"
graphic and photographic works becomes at times unbearably insis-Nauman, one must first consciously register all the unconscious or
tent, if not downright hostile. In one instance, two small speakers semiconscious
on resonances of the images and effects he creates. The
opposite walls of a claustrophobia-inducing white chamber bluntlybest access to his thoughts, therefore, is through a close examination
tell the unwary intruder, "Get out of my mind. Get out of this of one's own feelings.
room." This is art that does not love the art-lover back. However, the Although installation has always played a major part in his out-
motive for the rebuff is some- put, the artist's growing
thing other than mere irk- emphasis on this genre
someness or contempt for the derives from his increasing
public. Correlating architec- focus on the problem of
ture and mental space so that how to make the viewer see
physical access is granted on him or herself as the
the one hand but psychic involved subject, rather than
access is denied on the other, the detached object, of
the piece makes the viewer address. As uncomfortable
privy to the outwardly sup- as one usually is in the situ-
pressed terror of the artist (not ations he sets up, Nauman's
Nauman per se) for whom work is all about being
making contact with the there. Though he himself
public through their creations may engage in metaphoric
is tantamount to letting actions, or one of his neons
strangers freely enter their or videos which depicts the
most secret refuge. From Vin- war between the sexes may
centVan Gogh to Jackson Pol- have its origins in his per-
lock, museum-goers have been sonal experience, Nauman
encouraged to equate expres- eschews the confessional
sion with self-revelation. No mode. What obsesses him
less inclined to cut to the spir- instead are universal condi-
itual and emotional core of tions of existence, and the
Please/Pay/Attention/Please. I973. Collage and Letraset on paper. 27 ? x 27 "
things than they, Nauman is Private collection, Italy. Photo: courtesy Finarte, Milan. dynamics of confrontations
perhaps clearer about the cost. in which conventionally dis-
The barrenness of the white tinct roles are, under close
cube and the anxious, asphyxiating rasp of the disembodied voice tes-
scrutiny, uncannily interchangeable. In the winner-take-nothing game
of alienated affections, anybody can play and sooner or later every-
tify to the speaker's naked vulnerability. Nevertheless, the viewer's
prolonged presence establishes a compact with the room's alter ego.
body does. The twelve-screen video Violent Incident (I986) shows a
In this as in a number of his other installations, if one can endure
man and woman progressing from formal courtesy through puerile
the rejection and contagious panic, a strange intimacy develops. spite to bloody murder in the space of a few short minutes. These
One's thoughts gradually fall under the spell of the breathless chant- changes are run through in a checkerboard alternation; on one mon-
ing, which Nauman, a former guitarist, composed with an ear to the itor the man plays the aggressor, while on another the woman spits
rhythms, harmonies, and dissonances of contemporary vanguard obscenities and wields the knife. This is strong stuff, but it is emphat-
music. What was first a violation of someone else's domain is trans- ically theatrical, a mini-drama of domestic abuse staged as a round-
formed by duration into an echo chamber where one's fear of expo- robin of pointless vengefulness and victimization.
sure throbs and distant brain squalls resound in one's head. Other video installations are broadly slapstick, but it is slapstick
When Nauman admonishes the public to "Pay Attention," he that can be excruciating to watch or hear. Clown Torture (I987) is just
intends above all that they heed their own evolving and perhaps that, a painfully funny exercise in humiliation and frustration enact-
conflicting responses to the varied stimuli that he provides. As much ed by a cross between an upbeat Bozo, a downbeat Emmet Kelly, and
as any of his mediums, including his own persona, his audience's a regressive deadbeat out of Stephen King. On all sides of the video
reactions constitute part of the raw material of his art. These reac- projection room, this stereotypical and alarming character engages in
tions may range from complete identification with a gesture, look, infantile tantrums, acting out scenes of absurd powerlessness, consti-

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 pated indecisiveness, and hopelessly repetitious confusion that com- line mine] suggests instead that behavioral psychology, counted upo
pete for our divided attention. A single screen video, Shit in Your to improve on nature, may easily be turned against us. The repeat-
Hat-Head on a Chair (I990), incorporates the tongue-twisting voice- ed inability to learn from mistakes is a constant issue for Nauman;
over commands of a director instructing a silently bemused but obe- no design for betterment or punishment for failure changes the od
dient mime to perform the self-debasing ritual named, while we are against error. Pain is a poor teacher-or perhaps we are Suffering's
made complicitous to the sadomasochistic exchange. dunces. The flashing lights of One Hundred Live and Die (I984) cat
Proceeding from one room of such installations to the next is alog the hard and immutable facts of life and death, while the parall
like wandering through a monstrous fun house, the cumulative effect video monologues of Good Boy Bad Boy (I985) conjugate a similar litan
of which is both wrenching and enthralling. Loudness, rudeness, of instinct, rage, and moral ambiguity. The grammatical progressio
and humor of this kind and degree are generally unexpected in art from "I" to "You" to "We" links the video's separate speakers to th
museums, which many consider places of quiet appreciation and individual viewer, and the viewers to each other. Nonetheless, the
reflection. For these people, Nauman's temporary occupation of The semantic bond it establishes is totally devoid. of fellow-feeling
Museum of Modern Art may come as an unsettling surprise. How- or consolation.
ever, the contemplativeness of Ryman's paintings that graced the Unsentimental and unpreachy, Nauman speaks to each about
third-floor galleries last year is, as I suggested at the outset, only onethe longings, miseries, and follies of all. His subjects are the big sub-
of art's manifold dimensions. While the elegantly erotic and scato-jects of art and life. His diverse and frequently disorienting means of
logical tracery of Cy Twombly canvases, recently on these same walls,expression are, however, so unusual that outside the realms of litera-
demonstrates the middle term, Nauman represents the darker side ofture and the theater it is easy for those unaccustomed to such a visu-
the aesthetic equation. al discourse to miss the largeness of his purpose and the fundamental
Nauman belongs to a long tradition within the modernist canondirectness he strives for. He has acquired the international stature he
that reaches back to the oldest tragicomic strains of Western art. The
presently commands precisely because of the unique scope of his
washed-up buffoons Lucky, Pozzo, Vladimir, and Estragon in Samuelwork. In regard to Nauman, Americans, though steeped in the his-
Beckett's deadpan passion play Waitingfor Godot are close cousins oftory of modern art, have some catching up to do. The successful cul-
Nauman's hapless and nameless fools, who also descend laterally fromtural assimilation of modernism's early phases has, to a considerable
Max Beckmann's sideshow performers, Pablo Picasso's saltimban- extent, blurred the mysterious and often antagonistic qualities that
ques, the commedia dell' arte creatures of Francisco Goya and Gio-upset and stymied the public when such works first appeared, whether
vanni Battista Tiepolo, and the antique race of Greek and Roman they were Post-Impressionist, Cubist, Dadaist, Surrealist, or Abstract
grotesques whence they ultimately came. Times have changed, Expressionist. These qualities too often missed or taken for granted
though, and the kitschy aura of the iconic "sad clown," who is alsoremain embedded in that work even now. Each genuinely advanced
an ancestor, lends Nauman's beleaguered Everyman (and woman) aform of art must possess a measure of defiant strangeness if it is to offer
still more pathetic air a fresh perspective on
while at the same time fundamental poetic or
signposting the inappro- philosophical problems.
priateness of any maud- The modernist cre-
lin reading of the artist's do "make it new" has
intent. Like the torment- meaning if and only if
ed clowns, moreover, the the "it" is substantial and
flayed animal forms in the novelty announces
Carousel (I988) and relat- an original and far-
ed works also personify reaching way of seeing
humanity's reflex cruelty. and thinking. The real
The raucous video instal- challenge, therefore, is
lation Learned Helpless- not to leapfrog previous
ness in Rats (Rock and styles, but to dislodge
Roll Drummer) (I988) is our convention-deter-
predicated on the notion mined acceptance of
that our claims of evolu- unexamined realities.
tionary superiority are Aurally, visually, and in
tenuous at best. A print every other way, Nau-
not included in the cur- man has "pumped up the
rent exhibition, entitled volume," rearranging the
Learned Helplessness syntax of the several
Untitled (Study for Musical Chairs: Studio Version). 1983. Charcoal and graphite on paper. 38 X x 50".
From Rats (I988) [under- Collection Franz Meyer, Zurich. artistic languages he uses

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 Clown Torture. 1987. Installation: tWo 20" color monitors, two 25" color monitors, four speakers, two video projectors, four videotapes (color, sound).
Dimensions variable. Collection Lannan Foundation, Los Angeles. Exhibition copy. Photo: Glenn Halvorson, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

in order to achieve this goal. If his work initially seems more to exem- artist's work in various media from i965 to the present. The exhibition
plify our current confusions than to offer a cure for them, this is has been jointly organized by Kathy Halbreich, Director, Walker Art
because we are so little prepared for the very thing we crave: an art Center, Minneapolis, and Neal Benezra, Chief Curator of Exhibitions,
that communicates in the idiom of our day, asks the hard questions, Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture, Hirshhorn Museum and
and refuses facile answers. Nauman has broken the artistic mold to Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., in col-
apply himself to the most enduring of themes. It will take time for the laboration with Joan Simon, and Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator, Muse-
implications of what he has done-and is still doing-to fully sink um of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Robert Storr, Curator,
in. Already, though, he has had a crucial impact on his peers as well Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art,
as on countless younger artists in America and abroad. For those who who installed the exhibition at MoMA and contributed an essay to the
have been lucky enough to follow his zigzagging over the years, thiscatalogue.
exhibition is the first opportunity in over twenty years to examine the
puzzle he has laid out as an integrated entity. For those just getting Majorsupportfor the exhibition has been provided by the Lannan Foun-
acquainted, the pieces of that puzzle may seem daunting or unac- dation, The Bohen Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts,
countably perverse, but in the end they will provoke a radical but pro- and theAndy Warhol Foundation for the VisualArts. Additional support
foundly worthwhile reimagining of what modern art is and does. for the New York showing has been provided by the Lannan Foundation
and by the Contemporary Exhibition Fund of The Museum ofModern
Bruce Nauman, on view at The Museum ofModern Art from March 5 Art, established with giftsfrom LilyAuchincloss, Agnes Gund and Daniel
to May 23, is an extensive retrospective presenting the full range of the Shapiro, and Mr. and Mrs. Ronald S. Lauder.

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