Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation develops a critical reading of the early work of the American artist, Bruce Nauman, who, in the mid-sixties, began creating a highly diverse and eclectic oeuvre--including discrete sculpture, photographic and text pieces, video and audio installations, neon signs, and cast body parts. While most studies focus on either one medium, theme, or body of work for review, I take a synthetic approach, arguing that the failure to locate the coherence of Nauman's art is due to the challenges it proposes theoretically and art historically. In the literature, the art of the late sixties is frequently divided into two strains of practice, which are seen as mutually exclusive--one defined through models of language, the other through the body and performance. Nauman's art, however, undermines the legitimacy of these divisions. As such, I propose that it raises philosophical and theoretical questions regarding the meanings of language, action, the body, experience, and subjectivity, resulting in the necessity for an art historical re-evaluation of their significance. The point of departure for my investigation is Nauman's reception of Minimalist sculpture, which challenged the traditional idea of medium and interrogated the perceptual conditions of the art object. I propose that Nauman' art, however, lends historical and social specificity to this project, responding to the extraordinary growth of technology and expansions of media in the sixties, which were, paradoxically, accompanied by a philosophical critique of the subject. / (cont.) As a result, I suggest that Nauman's practice overcomes the abstract notions of experience and limited definition of subjectivity Minimalism proposes. By examining the multiple material forms his investigation takes, I conclude that the very opacity of Nauman's art emerge as an embodiment--or an enactment--of its meanings. From enigmatic body sculptures, which are frequently mistitled, to proposals for impossible performances, to the use of confining architectural spaces mediated by sound, light, and video recordings, the potentiality for communication (linguistic, perceptual) to fail or manipulate can be recognized as a central theme of Nauman's technically and stylistically diverse, but conceptually consistent, work. / by Janet L. Kraynak. / Ph.D.

Zugl.: Potsdam, Universiẗat, Diss., 2009. / Online-Ausg. im Internet.

Zugl.: Potsdam, Univ., Diss., 2009

Die Analyse vergleicht Installationen von Bruce Nauman und Olafur Eliasson ausgehend von der Fragestellung, wie sich die künstlerischen Performativitätsstrategien der 1960er/70er Jahren und die der zeitgenössischen Kunst in ihren Wirkungen und Effekten unterscheiden lassen. Dabei werden die Positionen der beiden Künstler als paradigmatisch für eine Ästhetik des Performativen angesehen. Neben dem Vergleich der Künstler steht die theoretische Auseinandersetzung mit der Diskursfigur der Performativität sowie deren methodischen Anwendbarkeit in der Kunstwissenschaft im Vordergrund. Während sich Installationen der 1960er/70er Jahre besonders durch die psycho-physische Einwirkung auf die Sinneswahrnehmung des Betrachters auszeichnen und durchaus Schockeffekte beim Betrachter hervorrufen, befasst sich die zeitgenössische Kunstpraxis vornehmlich mit visuellen und poetischen Effekten, die eine kontemplative Rezeptionshaltung des Betrachters einfordern. Bruce Nauman war es ein Anliegen, den tradierten Status des Kunstwerks als ein zu Betrachtendes, das sich durch Begriffe wie Form, Ursprung und Originalität fassen ließ, in Frage zu stellen und stattdessen eine reale leibliche Erfahrung für den Betrachter nachvollziehbar werden zu lassen. Künstlern wie Olafur Eliasson geht es in den künstlerischen Produktionen vor allem um die Wahrnehmung der Wahrnehmung sowie der Erzeugung von Präsenzeffekten. Mit dem Aufkommen solcher Verfahren wurde deutlich, dass performative Installationen nach anderen Beschreibungsformen verlangten und, dass diese durch eine Ästhetik des Performativen gefasst werden können. Wie genau vollzieht sich der Wandel von den performativen Strategien der 1960er/70er Jahre zu denen der zeitgenössischen Installationskünstlern? Verläuft dieser vom Schock zur Poesie? / This analysis compares installations by Bruce Nauman and Olafur Eliasson based on the following question: How can artistic performative strategies of the 1960s/70s and those of contemporary art be differentiated in their impact and effect. As part of the analysis, both artists’ positions are considered as being paradigmatic for an aesthetic of the performative. In addition to the comparison of the artists, we are confronted with the theoretical discussion about the discursive figure of performativity as well as its methodological applicability in the science of art. Installations of the 1960s/70s are mainly characterized by the psychological and physical impact on the viewer’s perception and their ability to evoke shock effects from the viewer. By contrast, contemporary art practice deals predominantly with visual and poetic effects, demanding a contemplative state of reception. It was one of Bruce Nauman’s intentions to question the traditional status of a work of art as an object that needs to be viewed and defined through concepts, such as form, origin and originality. Instead, he intended to allow the viewer to comprehend it as a real and physical experience. Artists such as Olafur Eliasson, on the other hand, aim in their artistic productions at producing effects of presence by perceiving the perception. Through the emergence of such procedures, it has become evident that performative installations require other forms of description and can be understood through an aesthetic of the performative. How exactly did performative strategies of the 1960s/70s change compared to works by contemporary installation artists? Did they in fact evolve from shock to poetry?

Ângulos de uma caminhada lenta: exercícios de contenção, reiteração e saturação na obra de Bruce Nauman parte da discussão de um conjunto de trabalhos do artista norte-americano com o intuito de compreender a estrutura, os elementos constitutivos e os procedimentos característicos de sua produção. A obra de Bruce Nauman mantém uma projeção pública há mais de quatro décadas e contempla meios e materiais variados - das primeiras moldagens às recentes instalações sonoras, o artista passa pela performance, vídeo, fotografia, desenho, gravura e intervenção em escala urbana - e mobiliza, a despeito de sua natureza multifacetada, um conjunto recorrente de questões, algumas das quais em franco diálogo com a tradição da escultura. Além de interrogar a persistência de uma espécie de inteligência escultórica na obra, esta tese propõe examinar o modo peculiar com que Nauman lança mão de alguns procedimentos disseminados nas obras de artistas da sua geração, sobretudo o uso da repetição em chave distinta dos processos de seriação em voga na década de 1960. Nos trabalhos de Nauman, os procedimentos de reiteração, redução, contenção e permutação de poucos elementos tendem a promover experiências de saturação e de extenuação, e, nesse sentido, aproximam-se de certos aspectos da obra de Samuel Beckett; duas linguagens artísticas diferentes que, todavia, mantêm pontos de convergência temática e formal / Angles of a slow walk: exercises in restraint, reiteration and saturation in the work of Bruce Nauman has as its starting point a discussion of a representative array from among the artist\'s production that seeks to obtain a greater understanding of the structure, constitutive elements and specific procedures found in his work. Nauman\'s production has sustained its popular prominence for more than four decades, and spanned an impressively wide spectrum of means and materials - from the early castings and moldings to the recent sound installations, through performance, video, photography, drawing, engraving, print and urban scale interventions - which summons, in spite of its multifarious nature, a persistent, recurring set of questions, some of which engage the sculptural tradition in an open and challenging dialogue. In addition to assessing the endurance of this type of sculptural intelligence in the artist\'s production, the thesis aims at examining the idiosyncratic way in which Nauman employs certain artistic procedures common to the works of artists of his generation, in particular his use of repetition in a fashion quite distinct from the serial processes en vogue in the 1960s; furthermore, the thesis attempts to uncover a number of formal convergences between Nauman\'s procedures in a significant assortment of pieces, and Samuel Beckett\'s body of work, with an emphasis on the exhaustive recombination of minimal elements as well as the use of repetition, suppression and restraint as fundamental mechanisms to promote a saturation of experience.

Ângulos de uma caminhada lenta: exercícios de contenção, reiteração e saturação na obra de Bruce Nauman parte da discussão de um conjunto de trabalhos do artista norte-americano com o intuito de compreender a estrutura, os elementos constitutivos e os procedimentos característicos de sua produção. A obra de Bruce Nauman mantém uma projeção pública há mais de quatro décadas e contempla meios e materiais variados - das primeiras moldagens às recentes instalações sonoras, o artista passa pela performance, vídeo, fotografia, desenho, gravura e intervenção em escala urbana - e mobiliza, a despeito de sua natureza multifacetada, um conjunto recorrente de questões, algumas das quais em franco diálogo com a tradição da escultura. Além de interrogar a persistência de uma espécie de inteligência escultórica na obra, esta tese propõe examinar o modo peculiar com que Nauman lança mão de alguns procedimentos disseminados nas obras de artistas da sua geração, sobretudo o uso da repetição em chave distinta dos processos de seriação em voga na década de 1960. Nos trabalhos de Nauman, os procedimentos de reiteração, redução, contenção e permutação de poucos elementos tendem a promover experiências de saturação e de extenuação, e, nesse sentido, aproximam-se de certos aspectos da obra de Samuel Beckett; duas linguagens artísticas diferentes que, todavia, mantêm pontos de convergência temática e formal / Angles of a slow walk: exercises in restraint, reiteration and saturation in the work of Bruce Nauman has as its starting point a discussion of a representative array from among the artist\'s production that seeks to obtain a greater understanding of the structure, constitutive elements and specific procedures found in his work. Nauman\'s production has sustained its popular prominence for more than four decades, and spanned an impressively wide spectrum of means and materials - from the early castings and moldings to the recent sound installations, through performance, video, photography, drawing, engraving, print and urban scale interventions - which summons, in spite of its multifarious nature, a persistent, recurring set of questions, some of which engage the sculptural tradition in an open and challenging dialogue. In addition to assessing the endurance of this type of sculptural intelligence in the artist\'s production, the thesis aims at examining the idiosyncratic way in which Nauman employs certain artistic procedures common to the works of artists of his generation, in particular his use of repetition in a fashion quite distinct from the serial processes en vogue in the 1960s; furthermore, the thesis attempts to uncover a number of formal convergences between Nauman\'s procedures in a significant assortment of pieces, and Samuel Beckett\'s body of work, with an emphasis on the exhaustive recombination of minimal elements as well as the use of repetition, suppression and restraint as fundamental mechanisms to promote a saturation of experience.

No description available.

Link to dataset: https://doi.org/10.25399/UnisaData.14152106.v1 / The work of Bruce Nauman can be understood as an enquiry into the absurd. His work is a critique of art, the artist and society, and is in part viewed as a mediation of stereotypical ‘truth’. The absurd is defined and analysed to elucidate the nature of art and human behaviour by means of literary comparison, in particular of Camus, Sartre and Wittgenstein. This research focusses on Nauman’s subversive performance- based work and analyses how he simulates a particular work of Duchamp. I propose that Nauman espouses human activity into the functionality of objects, such as fountains. My artworks expand on Nauman’s interrogation of the concept of a ‘true artist’ by embodying an absurd fountain as a Sisyphean construct. In contextualising my work in relation to incessant duty, insecurity and double negatives, I offer a regenerative vigour against idolisation of success through contemplation of the artist’s doubt and the absurd. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Visual Arts)

Die vorliegende Arbeit erörtert das Phänomen „Verhüllung als Kunst“ anhand von Kunstwerken von Man Ray, Maurice Henry, Allan Kaprow, Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Franz Erhard Walther, Antoni Tapies, Joseph Kosuth und Christo und Jeanne-Claude. Diese exemplarische Auswahl macht den Einfluss künstlerischer Strömungen und Zielsetzungen deutlich und zeigt zugleich die verschiedenen Funktionen von Verhüllungen als Kunst. Aufgrund der immer wiederkehrenden „Ähnlichkeitsvermutungen“ zwischen bekannten sakralen und profanen Verhüllungen und sog. Verhüllungskunstwerken in (populär-) wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen, wird eine genaue Betrachtung profaner und sakraler Verhüllungen vorgenommen. Ebenso geht die Arbeit der Frage nach, inwieweit die Verwendung der Begriffe „verhüllen“ und „verpacken“ sowohl bei der Interpretation als auch in den Titeln der Kunstwerke von Bedeutung sind. Fragen nach dem Verhüllten, der Hülle und ihrem Material, dem Ort, der Dauer, der Dimension und der Art und Weise der Verhüllung offenbaren eine Fülle von Erscheinungsformen und Merkmalen derselbigen. Die Analyse wird in der Interpretation durch (auto-)biografisches Material und frühere Interpretationen ergänzt.

This thesis is an attempt to de-construct the linear way in which I describe my work. I am attempting to deal with my family’s background in the theater and identity as a Texan. In addition I am attempting to address my interest in phenomenological concerns. This document was created in Microsoft Word 2000. The video portions of the video were edited on Imovie HD and Final Cut Pro, while the audio text was recorded from TextEdit’s text to speech program.