Bruce Nauman is widely acknowledged as a central figure in contemporary art, and the stringent questioning of values–both aesthetic and moral—that has long sustained his project remains urgent today. For more than fifty years, Nauman has explored how mutable experiences of time, space, sound, movement, and language provide an insecure foundation for our understanding of our place in the world.

 

This richly illustrated catalogue, which includes rare and previously unpublished images, offers a comprehensive view of the artist's work in all media—including drawings; early fiberglass sculptures; sound environments; architecturally scaled, participatory constructions; rhythmically blinking neons; and a recent 3-D video that harks back to one of Nauman's earliest performances. A wide range of authors—artists, curators, and historians of art, architecture, and film—focus on topics that have been largely neglected, such as the architectural structures that posit real or imaginary spaces as models for ethical inquiry and mechanisms of control. Curator Kathy Halbreich's introductory essay explores Nauman's many acts of disappearance, withdrawal, and deflection as revelatory of his central formal and intellectual concerns. Eighteen further contributions tease out the various themes that run through this protean and elusive artist's work.