Elusive Signs Bruce Nauman Works with Light

by Ketner Ii, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9780944110836
• ISBN10: 0944110835
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-03
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Intrigued and inspired by the neon beer signs on shopfronts in his San Francisco neighborhood, Bruce Nauman created his first neon piece, Window or Wall Sign, in 1967. He wanted, he said, to achieve "an art that would kind of disappear-that was supposed to not quite look like art." Light offered Nauman a medium both elusive and effervescent, but one that could also aggressively convey a message. Over the first three decades of his career, Nauman used the medium of light to explore the twists and turns of perception, logic, and meaning with the earnest playfulness that characterizes all his art. Elusive Signsfocuses on the discrete body of Nauman's work that uses neon and fluorescent light in signs and room installations, and includes images of nearly all Nauman's work with light. After Window or Wall Sign, Nauman embarked on a series of neons that grappled with the semiotics of body and identity, and with My Name as Though it Were Written on the Surface of the Moon(1968), he forces the viewer to contemplate the role of naming in forming identity. Language-signs and symbols-plays an important role in Nauman's art. His later neon works emphasize the neon as a sign, presenting provocative twists of language and offering harsh and humorous sociopolitical commentary in such pieces as Run from Fear, Fun from Rear(1972). This series culminates in the monumental, billboard-size One Hundred Live and Die(1984), which employs overwhelming scale to bombard the viewer with sardonic aphorisms. In incisive essays that accompany the images of Nauman's work, Joseph Ketner II of the Milwaukee Art Museum (which originated the exhibit this book accompanies) and critics Janet Kraynak and Gregory Volk analyze the works in light both as a body of work and as an access point to Nauman's entire career. Distributed for the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Author Biography

Joseph Ketner II is Chief Curator at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Joseph Ketner II is Chief Curator at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Janet Kraynak is a New York-based art historian.

Table of Contents

Foreword	7	(4)
David Gordon
Lenders to the Exhibition	11	(1)
Acknowledgments	12	(3)
Joseph D. Ketner II
Elusive Signs Bruce Nauman Works with Light	15	(26)
Joseph D. Ketner II
Signs and Systems On Nauman's Neon Templates and Other Works	41	(18)
Janet Kraynak
Miles of Stare The Bruce Nauman Carnival	59	(21)
Gregory Volk
Notes	80	(2)
List of Illustrations	82	(3)
Exhibition Checklist	85	(1)
Artist's Biography	86	(8)
Selected Bibliography	94