LAUNCHPROJECTS - Ben and I leave tomorrow for New York to attend the contemporary art auctions, meet with clients, and attend the preview for Bruce Nauman's exhibition at the new Sperone Westwater space.
In my excitement, I have been re-reading Please Pay Attention Please: Bruce Nauman's Words. Although Nauman has granted relatively few interviews over the course of his career, he granted Janet Karynak and the MIT press almost complete autonomy and access in preparing this collection. It provides fantastic insight into his thought process, his opinion of the art world and his place in it, and his transformation from emerging artist to absolute between 1965 - 2001.
The following is the first paragraph of a paper I wrote on Nauman a few years ago (click on the link below for the entire essay).
One of the most influential and innovative artists of the century, Bruce Nauman (born in 1941), remains a distinct and critical voice in contemporary art dialog. Nauman explores the intersection of art and life through installation, photography, performance, object making, and video. Nauman’s work is a provocation, a call to attention, an intentional shifting of perspective. As art critic and curator Robert Storr describes Nauman’s effect on his audience, "If they're not puzzled, they're not getting it" (Moorehead).
