complex cowboy; bruce nauman

Andrew solomonmarch 1995 this is a digital version of an article from The Times Print Archive, before it starts online in 1996.
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It won\'t work to try and summarize Bruce Nuoman\'s work.
Most artists in the late 20 th century had \"iconic styles\", repeating formal installations that made their art immediately recognized.
People who draw cartoons.
The man who put the slag block on the floor
Nauman is a person who makes you feel very depressed and nervous, but he can achieve this through neon lights, animal models, his own videos, shadow puppets, A chair hanging from the ceiling, or a triangular room illuminated with a terrible yellow shade.
By the way it makes you want to go home, you can recognize a Nauman.
\"They are the thoughts of the night that keep you awake and panicking at three in the morning. M.
With the tenacious clarity of the unsolvable problems, \"said Robert Stoler, curator of the painting and sculpture department at the Museum of Modern Art, where the exhibition of Nauman\'s work on the topic of perspective opens today
Continue watching before May 23).
This is Nauman\'s first American exhibition in 20 years, covering nearly 30 years of artistic value.
In Nauman\'s own words, his work is \"like hitting the face with a baseball bat \".
Or better, like getting hit at the back of your neck.
You have never seen it come;
It knocked you down.
\"Looking at a Nauman perspective show is like going through someone else\'s analysis: it\'s full of patterns, full of recurring desires, anxieties, and obsessions;
It is sometimes rather funny and often hostile;
It turns out that it has always been about things other than what is clearly said.
Like the analysis of others, Nurman\'s work is often boring and repetitive.
Some don\'t make much sense, some are too personal to exclude the audience.
It constantly revolves around its most unsolved problems.
\"When I was at art school,\" he explained, \"everyone else would do the art, find the best part, and then try to cover everything else up so that you see these.
I will always be fascinated by the part that doesn\'t seem to work, and I will continue to work until it takes over and becomes the whole work of art.
Last year, Michael Kimmelman wrote in this newspaper: \"The influence of Nauman is huge:\" He is probably the most influential American artist around him. \".
Matthew Barney, Kiki Smith, Jenny Holzer, Mike Kelly, Robert Gober, Tony Ole: none of these --
Names in contemporary art can appear without Nauman, but their reinterpretation does not weaken the original.
\"He is a strong example of the rest of us and introduces a possibility in consciousness that has entered the general field,\" Smith said . \".
His chair\'s hanging on a triangle makes me crazy. -
They have so many strange resonances that I don\'t understand how they come about.
When I first saw his \"corridor\" work, my vision of what constitutes art became wide open.
\"While the minimalist and others of Norman\'s generation tend to repeat themselves, he perseveres in his future and his art has never been immersed in his success.
I have seen Nurman\'s works for many years and have never thought of seeing him.
I thought he might be a sadist, controlling, intelligent, ruthless, cold guy.
Once, when I asked someone what Bruce Nuoman was like, he said, \"Oh, he\'s a cowboy,\" and I took this as a metaphor and imagined Nuoman as rude.
But this is not a metaphor.
Bruce Numan lives in 600-
Acres of ranch near N GalisteoM.
He raised horses, put horses, and put cattle.
His manners are impeccable, gentle, serious, kind, a little shy and decent.
When I first called, the text part of his work was playing in my mind, so I was half
Expect him to say, \"people die from exposure\" or \"I can suck you up\" or \"Spit/Spit \".
\"But in fact, he gave me fairly direct instructions and suggested that we eat at a restaurant in Santa Fe.
Nauman can explain his work very clearly, but he is more vivid in his cowboy speech, especially Ray Hunt, the coach who taught him to break the horse.
\"Ray lets you put yourself down,\" explained Nauman, looking at what it feels like to be a real master.
He claims that he is just an amateur, and a real master like Hunter has completed the Nauman experiment for many years in five minutes.
AdvertisementI has seen a review of Nauman in Washington last week at the Burrow Museum.
Mattis once said that his paintings were meant to bring happiness to the tired businessmen, and that Nurman\'s works were the opposite ---
For those relaxed art lovers, it can bring them intense anxiety and discomfort, especially when they enter the museum to watch.
Even if you don\'t know anything about Nauman, his work intensity will penetrate your defense.
What does he feel? he feels very strong. you \'d better be careful.
Nauman explained that he was not interested in the progressive, repetitive process of modern art: \"I tried to get to the last step immediately.
These changes have been addressed in one work.
\"Advertising is very suspicious, but it is actually convenient for the media to group Nauman\'s work.
Some of the early actors were very humorous: The wax mouth, part of the neck, arm and hand, called \"from hand to mouth\", which is a good interpretation of the cliché, solid concrete blocks are called \"the space under my chair \".
My favorite thing is \"art production\"
\"In this case, Nurman slowly covers himself with white, pink, green, black cosmetics until the end, he looks like a negative image.
The earliest neon lights were the 1967 s \"real artists help the world by revealing the mysterious truth\"-
Half ironic, half real, was made on the windows of the San Francisco Nauman storefront studio, where the neon beer logo was previously hung.
Later, Nuoman will do the famous \"100 life and death \"---
\"Live and Die/Live and Live/die and die/die and live--
Hundreds of words flashed intermittently like a fallen tent.
Most of the others are auditory.
In an empty little white room, a paranoid voice gradually strengthened, \"disappearing from my mind, from this room, from my mind, from this room
If you are standing in the middle of the room, the sound seems to come from your head).
Nauman used to design a series of underground tunnels that were never intended to be built, but he did make huge thin-length models for those tunnels.
There is also a series of \"corridor debris \".
\"In this review, from 1970, you go down a very narrow and depressing corridor;
The video monitor shows you what\'s going on in another part of the installation, you know the surveillance camera is watching you, but it\'s hard to figure out where people see you, or where you see someone.
This experience caused serious panic.
Nauman\'s mobile phone is about torture: Hanging steel structure, welded triangle with empty chairs hanging inside, inspired by the sadness of South American politics and chairs, rigidity of steel, how it was isolated and imprisoned-
Scared you to death.
Recent moves include a \"carousel\" in which the specimen maker\'s Model hangs on the ground like a butcher\'s body.
The video installation later was very complicated and shocking.
In Clown Torture, the videotape is projected on the wall and played on the monitor, some of which are sideways or upside down.
There are five different tapes in which there is a clown trying to defecate in the public toilet, a clown repeating a cyclical joke endlessly, and a clown screaming, \"No, no, no,
An invisible torturer.
All clowns feel both fear and fear.
In \"The learned helplessness of mice\" (
Rock drummer)\" --
A scientific article from the United States-
There is a yellow labyrinth of plexiglass in the center of the room;
The video is played alternately between the scene where the mouse struggles in the maze and the drummer\'s loud, angry and poorly played footage.
In the video \"shadow puppets and guided Pantomime\", a double-sex --
It seems that the pantomime is hard to follow the stern and humiliating instructions of an invisible commander.
In the recent installation, the video monitor is placed on the box, just like this impossible technical maze has just been installed on site.
The noise at the Nauman spectrum exhibition is terrible.
The tube is buzzing;
Spoken part of video clips;
\"I am a good boy . \"
You are a good boy.
\"We are good children\" or \"out of this room \";
Rock drummers, metal animals of merry-go-round drag terrible screams along the floor (
Worse than the squeaky chalk on the blackboard).
There is a video clip in which Nauman unconsciously plays a violin that is tuned to notes D, E, a, and D.
The lights are flashing all over the place.
This is an interesting House, crowded past from interesting places.
\"I don\'t like here\", when I go through it, a little girl is crying for her mother, and when she starts to cry, you hardly noticed an increase in the noisy and unpleasant mood in the room.
If you have not encountered the work, it is difficult to infer from the level of uneasiness it causes described here.
\"The fear of Nauman seems to float, pause, and surpass any particular anxiety,\" Adam Golnick wrote in The New Yorker . \".
Peter shiydal, Nauman\'s longest --
The word \"champion\" is written in American art, \"there is a wealth of communication in this art, but there is no communication. . . .
It seems impolite to \"like\" or not like Nauman\'s question.
In the face of his work, the rational mind became very clear, and the emotional reaction was also in trouble.
\"At the Hirshhorn exhibition, I felt like I was split by the relentless, repetitive drive of a jack.
However, the work is not completely negative, whether it is content or impact.
As Nauman pointed out: \"I wouldn\'t work if I were a pessimist.
You don\'t work if you don\'t have hope.
N auman was born in Fort Wayne, England.
His father worked as an engineer at General Electric in 1941, which meant that the family often moved.
Nauman went to the University of Wisconsin where he began to study science and mathematics.
After his transfer to art, he went to the University of California, Davis, where he studied with Robert Arnesen and William T. Wiley.
Davis\'s classmates recalled that the artistic intensity of the man was amazing;
A young Nicholas Wilder, already an influential dealer in Los Angeles, came to school on a hot day in 1966 and he looked at Nauman\'s work and said, \"I really need a Dr. Pepper.
Between the small mouths, he gave Nurman a performance.
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There was a time when Nurman was in the art fear circle-
This is a world of ironic, playful West Coast artists.
In 1968, he was taken over by the dealer Konrad Fischer, who promoted Nauman to the upper level of contemporary art (
Fischer still represents Nurman in Europe).
In the same year, he began his long-standing relationship with Leo Castelli and held an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1972. among other places, the museum also traveled to the Whitney family in New York.
Nevertheless, Nuoman\'s popularity abroad has always been higher than that at home;
He is similar in Europe.
Known as Warhol, in January, Holt asked him to be at the heart of the last document, an honor he politely refused. (
He also politely refused to attend this year\'s Whitney Biennale, which opens next month. )
Nauman has never lived in New York.
He has been in New Mexico since 1979.
Consciously staying away from an art world where complex social dynamics are not suitable for his harsh views on himself.
He has no acting, worldly, self
Promote the charm of Eric Fisher or Jeff Coons.
Being alone in his studio is what he wants and gets.
His work has been sold to museums, or concepts like IDFA henderes, Susan and Lewis menilo and Giuseppe Panza di Bomo
He managed to tell you a lot without giving up his privacy (\"Self-
\"Exposure can\'t be a good art,\" he commented. .
His most influential figures are Ray, vitgenstein, Robb.
Greet and Samuel Beckett
The structure of the work, he said, came very directly from vitgenstein: \"I pursue an argument until the point where I gave it up.
In mathematics, he explains, you make a proposition and then try to prove it.
My work uses this structure, but from vitgenstein I understand that it is also valuable to look at a process that does not lead to evidence or even a real conclusion.
\"Most of his work looks like Duchamp\'s, but most of Duchamp\'s influence comes from Jasper John;
Nuoman\'s work has an unforgivable American nature to it,
Back in the past, as important as the game is the ethics of the pilgrims --
Performance of Dada, France
\"You must not trust your own skills and avoid anything that is too easy,\" Nauman said.
\"Critics have made a great contribution to the cast marks visible on his animal sculptures and the quality of the indifferent images of his videos (
Nauman is an excellent draftsman who is beautifully painted and detailed;
Unfortunately, none of these are in the exhibition).
\"You can stop once the idea or meaning is clear,\" he said . \".
The rough finish is economical, not sloppy.
A huge shed between the House and the animal pen, N auman\'s studio is very, very cluttered.
There are some old furniture, big pieces of steel, some animal models, a lot of books, a half cup --
Full of tea, some scraps of paper with sketches on it.
A typo was posted on the wall and Nauman said it was the typo he installed next time.
The title is world peace \".
\"Start:\" I will talk to you/you will listen to me/you will talk to me/I will listen to you/I will talk to them/they will listen to me, and has undergone numerous changes.
\"It sounds very pleasant,\" I said . \" Nauman explained that he will have two actors doing it.
If every actor reads two lines, it\'s a friendly conversation.
If every actor reads a line, it is a hostile confrontation.
Nauman has not yet fully decided how he will do it;
The actors are coming tomorrow.
\"World Peace\" may end up being an ironic title or a completely serious one. Or --more likely --both.
Today, AdvertisementNauman is married to image painter Susan Rothenberg. Rothenberg met her at a dinner party in New York on 1988.
Two years after her commute, she gave up the New York scene she had never particularly liked and moved to the ranch in Nurman.
Nauman does everything but painting, she does nothing but painting, so they are perfect for each other.
If you are going to interview him, she will keep a distance from professional conversations, although she will occasionally come in and say something smart and interesting, or show you the arrows she found while walking her dog outside.
They seem to love each other very much in a quiet way.
Nothing is self.
Conscious in their house;
The only artwork on the wall was made by a neighbor friend, showing the local landscape and lacking formal skills.
In addition to horses, cattle and two Tibetan yaks bought last year, there are many dogs and a cat;
The boundary between the outside and the inside is vague.
Rothenberg and Nauman for dinner, it was really nice and when I mentioned the long drive back to the hotel, Rothenberg told me I would just stay.
I am in the late stages of a particularly disgusting flu and they are very happy with it.
There was a lot of tea, a lot of wine and a lot of warm blankets on the bed.
They will get an answer if you have a question.
If you have no problem, there is no problem with silence.
We can talk about vitgenstein, or about the village of Pueblo that used to be on the ranch, or about what we\'re eating ---it\'s all fine.
Late at night, we had drinks in our hands and looked at the video tape of owner Ray Hunt.
Rothenberg went to bed, but Nauman and I continued to watch and occasionally exchanged views, and then he turned off the sound and continued the narrative.
\"See how he did it? \" Nauman asks.
\"He\'s going back to the hard place.
In order to make the mare Better, she must first become more confused and afraid.
You see, she\'s used to him.
See how he\'s approaching her now?
He couldn\'t have done that a minute ago. There she goes.
He asked her to fix it herself. She\'s O. K. now.
Later he explained: \"If you have a horse and are afraid that someone is close to her flank, you cannot avoid it.
You can\'t get her money when you go out, there\'s something near her flank.
This is the case with broken horses.
You don\'t hit them, but you can\'t be too soft.
You are sure that you are in control, and then you are gentle and firm, and you go back over and over to the place close to the flank until she is used to it and she is no longer afraid.
When you ask for something from a horse, you have to do it in a way that makes her understand you.
That\'s how you broke the horse.
\"There is a master in MOMA this month ---
There may not be Ray Hunt yet, but it\'s close.
He found out where the audience was most frightened or anxious.
Then he left. he messed up those places.
It seems abusive and he will not leave them alone and he will not give up anything that people want to avoid.
He is not too cruel because he is not so direct, but he does poke you all the time in your weakest place.
He was gentle at the beginning, but if he did not succeed, he might become more rough.
Then he will be gentle for another minute.
This is instinct.
\"Understanding takes power away from terrible things,\" Nauman said . \".
The early print content is \"please/note/Please \".
\"Nauman is always watching and he is asking his audience to keep watching as well.
You can\'t escape anything here.
My last morning in Galento, the weather was a postcard-perfect.
The man had a few horses for us, and we went through the ranch.
I\'m on Janie, Rothenberg\'s favorite person, Nauman went bankrupt a few years ago.
The horse\'s head is hung with loose hacks so there is no real reins to pull, my legs are under little pressure but Janie somehow knows what I want and she does.
It is despicable by a set of criteria;
On the other hand, it is a kind of divine sympathy or sympathy.
After all, the verb is \"break \".
\"Nurman\'s work is offensive, humiliating and disturbing, but when you give in to it and make him in charge, then you can do what you can\'t do before in this world.
You will be more useful, more valuable and maybe better once he hurts you.
In March 5, an article about artist Bruce Nuuman included the wrong name provided by an art gallery for collectors who bought his work.
She\'s IDSA Hendry, not IDFA.
A version of this article was printed on page 6006028 of the National edition on March 5, 1995 with the title: complex Cowboys; Bruce Nauman.