Nauman, Bruce (1941– ). Sculptor, video artist, printmaker, conceptual artist, installation artist, performance artist, and photographer
Among the most mercurial, innovative, and controversial artists of recent decades, he has sustained a freewheeling investigation into the limits of art and the role of the artist. His witty, disturbing, and profound challenges often interrogate art’s relationship to language, politics, technology, and human communication. Repetitive, crass, emotionally draining effects force viewers to confront the superabundance of such qualities in contemporary American life. His art offers a series of propositions showing little sequential development. There is no Nauman visual style, nor much sense of technical progress, although more recent projects have tended toward greater physical and emotional amplitude. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he first studied mathematics but then turned to art at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he earned a BFA in ... ...
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