LOS ANGELES — That probably the greatest artwork exhibits in Los Angeles proper now could be an empty room would possibly come as a shock to most. Bruce Nauman would beg to vary — simply as he has for the whole lot of his 60-plus-year profession. A formidable determine in trendy and up to date artwork, his apply runs the gamut, from efficiency to sculpture to video, and past, all united by his conceptual interrogations of artwork itself. However what could seem heady on paper is surprisingly — and refreshingly — easy and even earnest in particular person. At Marian Goodman Gallery, an exhibition specializing in the artist’s Pasadena Years (1969–79), when he lived in East LA, shows works that he created particularly to heart the viewer’s expertise of structure, the physique, and artwork — typically making use of almost vacant galleries. These items are the stuff of artwork historical past legend (and plenty of school programs), however what, if something, do they imply to us now?
A lot of Nauman’s artwork cuts to the core of our engagement with artwork previous and current, taking a look at foundational interactions between viewers, artwork objects, and artwork establishments. In “Performance Corridor” (1969), he exaggerates the sense of confinement in exhibition areas, establishing a naked, slim picket hallway that useless ends on one facet into an empty wall. Likewise, “Funnel Piece (Françoise Lambert Installation)” (1971) consists of two tall white partitions, equivalent to these enclosing the gallery, that slant towards one another, nearly assembly at their apex. These easy works enact what many artists have labored to show: that the artwork world’s constructions — each its literal buildings and its bigger equipment — are restrictive and arbitrary, however they’re nonetheless the first method we expertise artwork.
Bruce Nauman, Research for Holograms (1970), suite of 5 screenprints
In Nauman’s eyes, although, these confining techniques and constructions beginning a seemingly limitless array of experiences, objects, and reactions. Movies on view, displayed on traditionally correct Sony televisions, present figures partaking with their environments in repetitive actions, from “Bouncing in the Corner, No. 2: Upside Down” to “Revolving Upside Down” (each 1969) or “Tony Sinking into the Floor, Face Up and Face Down” (1973), to call a couple of. The figures in every work exhibit how even probably the most banal motion can turn into injurious, ecstatic, and sensual when they’re approached as artwork. Nauman cheekily endorses this perspective in his text-based piece, “Body Pressure” (1974), a pink paper poster that instructs its readers to press their our bodies laborious right into a wall, which he notes “may become a very erotic exercise.”
In a 1966 interview revealed in Artforum, sculptor Tony Smith describes driving by the barren, industrial wasteland of an unfinished part of a New Jersey turnpike, surrounded by the identical supplies that have been in style in minimalist sculpture on the time. He known as the expertise “the end of art.” Smith’s remarks elucidate the values of many likeminded artists who, on the time, believed that the twentieth century had seen artwork by to its pure conclusion, distilling the varieties and emotions of modernity so utterly that they might not be meaningfully distinguished from a drive down an deserted freeway. Nauman proves in any other case. At Marian Goodman Gallery, the artist demonstrates how interactions between the artwork object and viewer are, in truth, infinite. Fortunately for Nauman, the tip of artwork proves very lengthy certainly.
Bruce Nauman, “Vision” (1973), one-color lithograph and display print on Arches 88 paper
Set up view of Bruce Nauman: Pasadena Years at Marian Goodman Gallery, Los Angeles. Pictured: “Text for a Room” (1973/2025), wallboard, textual content on paper; “Funnel Piece (Françoise Lambert Installation)” (1971), wallboard, wooden
Bruce Nauman, “Untitled (Corridor Study with Red, Yellow, Blue)” (1969), graphite and pastel on paper
Set up view of Bruce Nauman: Pasadena Years at Marian Goodman Gallery, Los Angeles. Left to proper: “Performance Corridor” (1969); wallboard and wooden; “Violin Tuned D.E.A.D.” (1969), videotape, black and white, sound, 60 min., to be repeated constantly; “Revolving Upside Down” (1969), videotape, black and white, sound, 60 min., to be repeated constantly
Bruce Nauman, “SUGAR/RAGUS/RACUS/SUCAR/RAGUS …” (1973), graphite and presstype on paper
Bruce Nauman: Pasadena Years continues at Marian Goodman Gallery (1120 Seward Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles) by April 26. The exhibition was organized by Philipp Kaiser with Samantha Gregg of Marian Goodman Gallery, in shut collaboration with Bruce Nauman and his studio.
