Bruce Nauman
The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths
Creativity today has allowed for the transition from artistic “religious ritual” (49) to contemporary “exhibition value”, meaning transition from the private to public. Bruce Nauman is best known for his contradictory texts, and skilful manipulation of mass media exhibiting bright-neon light sculptures touching on a range of fields and themes, such as societal, economic and political. His art, frequently based on language and innovative media techniques, possesses a unique aesthetics considered canonical in modern art discourses. At the same time, made of commercially available materials and based on repetition and progression, his works are classified as minimalist and are the “evidence of late capitalism’s hegemony over our material and sacred lives” (53) as described by Francis. Nauman’s works are devoted to political conflicts and therefore human tragedies. They reflect his interest in the tradition of religious art history myth as well as the contemporaneous need to convey economic, “moral (in the sense of humanist)” (54) and political content.
Language is an essential vehicle in transferring Nauman’s artistic message. Spectators perceive that his language confronts with a spectrum of contradictory values, whereas others think that his linguistic statements have no value as an art object. In other words, his works’ ideas contradict one another, as all of them reflect a dark and sarcastic way of looking at the world and life itself but presented with extremely bright colours. Nauman’s “truisms” take many forms, such as cruel jokes, heartbreaking laments, philosophical thoughts, games-anagrams, and palindromes. “One Hundred Live and Die” (1984) which consists of many coloured neon-light phrases that light up one after another. Blindingly beautiful the work expresses the artist’s concerns about the destiny of today’s politics, economics, culture and humanity. He appreciates the notion of using vibrant colours and shapes as a metaphor to focus on the aspects of human life and death. In addition to marking his concerns through “truisms”, the variations of colour reinforce the systematic function of his distress depicted in his work by prompting the viewer to look for a system that organizes the arrangements of colour patterns.
Time and space play a role in the viewer’s perception of the message because the flashing language cannot be taken in at once. The artist’s insightful statements which are condensed, filtered or distilled from the human culture at large carry witness of social and interpersonal conflict, while persistently exposing the plotting of the commercial, economic, political, societal and cultural systems to the human being. As if in accordance with Francis’ idea that contemporary art is a synthesis and synergy of components, Nauman amalgamates modern industrial materials, technology and language to convey the artistic message skimming the existing capitalist consumer culture, to “relate modern and contemporary art to society and […] to artistic traditions on global scale” (50).
His works may remind the viewer of the streets of Hollywood, Las Vegas or New York City. Although these displays have been quite commercialized, and are rather shown to attract consumer attention, to advertise and to convince, Nauman, nevertheless, is constantly trying to affect the public with “his” art. Drawing on the artist’s internal conflict between the commercial-like depiction of his oeuvre and the desire to preserve art, Francis posits that within an artist there is “the need for rapture” as one “no longer recognizes [his/her] rootedness in the material world” (53).
Works Cited
“Bruce Nauman.” Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. 185 Sainte-Catherine West Street Montreal, Quebec H2X 3X5. May 2007.
Francis, Richard, Homi K. Bhabba and Yve-Alain Bois. Negotiating Rapture : The Power of Art to Transform Lives. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1996. 49–58.
