Bruce Nauman - famous representative of concept art

Many of the artists who are among the best known and successful today are concept artists . They also include Bruce Nauman, the American artist, born in 1941.

Nauman already showed the all -encompassing curiosity and cosmopolitanism for many concept artists , so the choice of subjects was already unusual in its compilation: in 1960 he took mathematics, physics and art and concluded all of these subjects with a bachelor in 1964.

However, he only continued his art studies at the University of California in Davis to the master title, which was granted to him in 1966. During the time of studies, rather traditional areas of painting, Nauman increasingly turned to new forms of expression. He dealt with the film and sculpture and organized performance.

Nauman thus became a concept artist who, in the tradition of Sol Lewitt's (the founder of concept art ), saw the idea as the most important part of the artistic work. Art becomes a concept, the analytical process for which the physically created artwork only develops visual options.

Bruce Nauman's creative vision

Bruce Nauman is undoubtedly one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. His creative vision and unique approach to art have made him an important representative of the contemporary art world. In this blog article we will concentrate on taking a closer look at his creative vision and understanding what makes his art so unique.

Nauman is known for his versatile work, which takes place in various media such as sculpture, video, performance and installation. His works of art are powerful, provocative and often challenging for the viewer.

His work was presented on international art exhibitions such as the Biennale in Venice, Documenta in Kassel and Art Basel, which further underlines its influence in the art world. Nauman's creative vision also has a sustainable influence on modern art in general. His use of visual elements and techniques, as well as his joy in experimentation, have inspired and influenced many subsequent artists.

In recent years in particular, Nauman's influence on the 21st century has increased. His unconventional approach to art and its ability to involve social and political issues in his works make him a contemporary model for many artists worldwide.

Nowadays you can still benefit from Nauman's creative vision. His works give us the opportunity to challenge our concepts of art and creativity and discover our own creative voice. We can learn from his courage to cross borders and to break new ground in art.

In contrast to very puristic concept artists, Nauman does not consider the artistic execution to be so unimportant that it can even be carried out as commissioned work by assistants under the guidance of the artist. But he makes the constant emergence part of the work of art by hiring the viewer to the morphosis of the work.

Here, too, the work of art is created in the world's imagination, it is never completed in general, but new and different for every viewer. This is achieved by Nauman by repeatedly touching human sensory perception in his work, the viewer of his works of art immediately experiences. be conveyed very pleasant, funny or erotic sensations

Characteristic style and important works

Bruce Nauman has created installations and sculptures made of various materials, photographs, neo -objects and video recordings, with more than lively artistic production. His work immediately met with a remarkable response, as early as 1966 he was organized in Los Angeles the first solo exhibition in a gallery. In 1968 the first European gallery exhibition and the first exhibition in Kunstmekka New York followed, this year he also took part in the documenta .

Also during this time, the artists who were supposed to influence his further work met: he met the American singer and choreographer Meredith Monk, with whom he staged a performance in the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York in 1969, he met the composer Steve Reich and sat down under their influence with the work of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Merce Cunningham.

In his extensive work, Bruce Nauman used a variety of visual elements and techniques that make his art so unique. Regardless of whether sculpture, installation, video or performance, Nauman shows an extraordinary ability to work with various media and use innovative visual strategies.

His work is often shaped by a strong aesthetic effect that captivates the viewer and encourages you to think. A remarkable example of Nauman's use of visual elements and techniques is his exhibition "Disappearing Acts" in the Schaulager in Basel from 2018.

In 2018, the Schaulager in Basel honored one of the most important artists in our present with a long -awaited retrospective. The exhibition "Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Act" was organized by the Laurenz Foundation, the Schaulager Basel and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

A diverse spectrum of video work, drawings, print graphics, photographs, sculptures, neon work and extensive installations is shown. The exhibition not only includes key works, but also less well-known works as well as world premieres such as the 3D video projection Contrapposto Split , the monumental sculpture Leaping Foxes and the recently created Contrapposto Studies.

Bruce Nauman, born in 1941 in the Midwest of the United States and now living and working in New Mexico, is a central figure of contemporary art. His pioneering work researches topics such as language, physicality and power structures and questions regulations.

"Disappearing Acts" offers a comprehensive overview of Nauman's diverse work that has lost nothing over five decades of urgency and topicality.

This work illustrates its ability to use visual elements and techniques in a sophisticated way in order to create an urgent artistic experience. In addition, Nauman also developed a striking visual language in his work on paper and in his drawings. His sketches and designs show precise lines and contribute to the intensity of his art.

Some of his best-known works, such as "The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths" and "Self-Portrait as a Fountain" , are part of many renowned art collections and were exhibited in renowned galleries and museums worldwide.

The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths

Bruce Naumans Famous Leuchtreklame, which can be admired in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, raises a variety of questions regarding the way the 20th century appeared both the avant-garde art and the role of artist in society. When former European modernists such as Mondrian, Malewitsch and Kandinsky tried to bring deeply rooted truths about the human constitution and the role of the artist in general, then Bruce Nauman's "The True Artist" the world by unveiling mystical truths.

Regarding this work, Nauman said (translated from English):

"The most difficult thing about the whole piece was for me. It was a kind of test - for example if you pronounced a little loudly to see if you believe it. After I wrote it down, I could see that the statement [...] was a completely stupid idea on the other, but on the other hand it was also true. Thought."

Nauman's artistic maxim: process more important than the result

Nauman's work crosses many genres of art by researching the implications of minimalism , concept art , performance and process art . In this sense, we could call Nauman's art "post-minimalism" , a term that art critic Robert Pincus-Witten shaped in his article "Eva Hesse: Post-Minimalism into sublime" ( Artforum 10, number 3, November 1971

Artists such as Nauman, Acconci and Hesse preferred the process instead of the product or examination compared to the end result. However, this does not mean that you have not produced objects such as the glow record from Nauman, but only that when presenting the object, you also examined the processes that made this specific object.

In this sense, Nauman's fluorescent sign is not just an object, but a process, something that continues to think about thinking about art, artists and the role that the language plays in our idea of ​​both. The words continue to demand this from every viewer who you encounter. Does the artist, the "true artist", really reveal "mystical truths"? Or limited to the specific culture in which it was manufactured?

If we believe the statement (remember that it does not necessarily come from Nauman, he only borrowed it from our common culture), then we could, for example, Leonardo da Vinci as a Neoplatonic artist who showed us the ultimate and significant truths through painting. On the other hand, if we reject the statement, we would probably only recognize the artist as another producer of a certain amount of objects that we call "art".

This type of logic and analytical thinking was influenced by Nauman's reading of the philosophical studies (1953) of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein . From Wittgenstein, Nauman took over the idea that one explains a statement/idea in the form of language and then checked its results, regardless of her evidence or conclusion.

Nauman's "Language Games", his neon words, his thesis on the essence of art and the artist still find great reverberation in today's art world, especially with regard to the value that we attach to the actions and knowledge of the artist (see "Bruce Nauman, The True Artist The World by Revealing Mystic Truth" by JP McMahon )

Through the combination of shapes, colors and patterns, it creates complex and structured compositions that immerse the viewer into the world of his creative vision. It is this unique use of visual elements and techniques that Bruce Nauman has made one of the most influential artists of modern art.

Nauman's work was to be admired in numerous solo exhibitions in the art centers of the world, he has already exhibited a total of five times on Documenta (Kassel) and several times on the Biennale (Venice). There are several public collections of his art in the German -speaking world, in Schaffhausen, Munich and Zurich, and he was able to achieve various significant awards for artists.

In addition to his busy artistic production, Nauman has always taught at art universities, since 1989 he has lived and worked in a large country seat near the Galisto settlement in the US state of New Mexico.