Bruce Nauman

Bruce Nauman (b. 1941, United States) is among the prominent conceptual artists of the past thirty years. Since the mid-1960’s, Nauman has created a body of work comprising installations, videos and sculptures which he has exhibited across the globe. Nauman was one of the earliest artists to experiment with video, creating installations in which viewers had an active role. Inspired by the appearance of popular advertising Nauman created, at the early stages of his career, neon sculptures depicting morbid and violent scenes. Nauman reflected on consumer culture in a laconic yet ingenious way, employing binary oppositions – sex and death, love and cruelty – in language, in double innuendo and in body images; all peppered with humorous sarcasm.

Related exhibitions: The Towering Inferno, Potent Wilderness

 

Bruce Nauman, Double Poke in the Eye II, 1985, Sequentially timed neon wall sculpture mounted on a white enamel box

Bruce Nauman, Violent Incident – Man/Woman Segment, 1986, VHS cassette tape in colour with audio

The collection