Bruce Nauman at the Venice Biennale
Over the last four decades, American artist Bruce Nauman has been hugely influential on artists all around the world.
Now, Nauman is the subject of this year’s American pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale.
Of the 33 Naumans on view at the Biennale, there’s only one that captures Nauman at his most disruptive. First shown in 1993, it consists of two stacked video monitors with the artist’s head shown bouncing up and down in each, sometimes upside-down, sometimes right-side-up, and all the while screaming “Think! Think! Think! Think!” The effect is hardly cogitative. It numbs the senses and the mind. Yet “think” may be the most important command that art has ever given. We’ve come up with “classic” notions such as “beauty,” “good taste,” “high skill” — maybe even “fine art” and “old master” — to help to damp its force. Nauman restores it.