Born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Bruce Nauman has been recognised since the early 1970s as one of the most innovative and provocative of America’s contemporary artists. Nauman finds inspiration in the activities, speech, and materials of everyday life.
Nauman once said; 'My work comes out of being frustrated about the human condition. And about how people refuse to understand other people. It’s not that I think I can change that, but it’s just such a frustrating part of human history.'
He uses many aspects of media in his exhibitions, some which include video and neon lights-some of his most famous works.
As an installation artist, nauman uses his surroundings as his art, an example of this is his exhibit from 1987-Clown torture. He used old televisions to show the video which displayed clown's in certain torturous situations. This showed four stacked television screens. One which showed a clown screening 'no', another which displayed a clown telling an annoying children's joke, a clown balancing goldfish bowls and a clown sitting on a public toilet.
Nauman has been described as one of the most influential installation artists, who has influenced many artists due to his aggressive installations, neon's, sound pieces, videos and performances. He has also been described as creating a genre of art which makes people uncomfortable and shocked by a performance piece. Although as a artist it was never his intention to shock through art, it is what made him memorable.
Through originally he went to art school in the intention to paint, he quickly realised that his strong point was visual media and sculpture.
I will now discuss and closely review this image which is 'one hundred live and die'.
Nauman once said; 'My work comes out of being frustrated about the human condition. And about how people refuse to understand other people. It’s not that I think I can change that, but it’s just such a frustrating part of human history.'
He uses many aspects of media in his exhibitions, some which include video and neon lights-some of his most famous works.
As an installation artist, nauman uses his surroundings as his art, an example of this is his exhibit from 1987-Clown torture. He used old televisions to show the video which displayed clown's in certain torturous situations. This showed four stacked television screens. One which showed a clown screening 'no', another which displayed a clown telling an annoying children's joke, a clown balancing goldfish bowls and a clown sitting on a public toilet.
Nauman has been described as one of the most influential installation artists, who has influenced many artists due to his aggressive installations, neon's, sound pieces, videos and performances. He has also been described as creating a genre of art which makes people uncomfortable and shocked by a performance piece. Although as a artist it was never his intention to shock through art, it is what made him memorable.
Through originally he went to art school in the intention to paint, he quickly realised that his strong point was visual media and sculpture.
I will now discuss and closely review this image which is 'one hundred live and die'.
This is one of nauman's most well known installations, and when reviewing, it isn't hard to see why. He once said that he liked using neon lights as ' it has two dimensions, you can see the inside of the light as well as the text in front of you'. The sculpture includes some well known sayings as well as some which has been changed to be made more sinister. An example of which is 'kill and die'. The repetition of certain words which may be described as insulting adds dimension to the piece. The phrases on this are the same as Nauman's 1985 installation, 'good boy, bad boy', which was a video presentation of a man and a women saying the words used in this sculpture quite calmly. In the past installation, certain words such as bad and good were accompanied with a change of vocal tone of expression, while in this installation to relevance of the words emotions are shown via colour. Such as phrases including 'die' are red or dark orange, connoting danger or death, while phrases including 'live or 'laugh' are lighter colours such as green or yellow. This shows the personal connotations the words have with the artist.
I think that Nauman was, in a similar way to good boy, bad boy, trying to make the viewer feel that the phrases would eventually all blend together to form one piece. While some words may stand out due to colour or position, over all the piece would show that the artist feels all theses words mean the same thing.
Personally, I admire Nauman's work and feel I appreciate his original concepts and like how he develops his ideas, which is something I could learn and develop for my installation piece.
My favourite installation of Naumans's is clown torture. The reason I like this piece is because I found it the most disturbing and was most curious about it. The shock factor that this piece has is defiantly something I will include in my piece and I was try to recreate the repetition it involves.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nauman
http://farticulate.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/bruce-nauman-selected-photographs-excerpts-from-an-interview/
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bruce+nauman&oq=bruce+nauman&gs_l=youtube.3...0.0.0.3266.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac.
Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Nauman
http://farticulate.wordpress.com/2010/10/23/bruce-nauman-selected-photographs-excerpts-from-an-interview/
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bruce+nauman&oq=bruce+nauman&gs_l=youtube.3...0.0.0.3266.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1ac.
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