“I’m very uncomfortable with a clean, empty studio…usually, I only clean whatever area I need for a project.”
–Bruce Nauman
I feel you, Bruce. And your space looks fabulous compared to mine. I have to climb in these days, the rat’s nest having grown to larger than life dimensions. Maybe someday I’ll get back to the pristine studio space I have had at certain points in time. But looking at my friend Pam Farrell’s blog (P Farrell artblog) and the many postings there by artist friends about their gorgeous studio spaces, I think I need a few more pals like Bruce.
Speaking of Nauman, there was a two page spread about him in the Sunday Times Magazine with these memorable lines about his work:
If you’re feeling generous, the work of Bruce Nauman can be described as “challenging” or “controversial.” “Hostile,” if you’re feeling less so. Or, as the artist himself once put it in the pages of this magazine, it’s “like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat.” Nauman, who over the past several decades has plied a variety of media from sculpture to sound and who, at 67, is widely regarded as the most influential artist of his generation, will represent the United States at this year’s Venice Biennial, which opens to the public June 7. If, as Adam Gopnik proposed in The New Yorker back in 1995, Nauman’s art earns “its aggravations through its perfect pitch for the ugly tenor of contemporary American life,” then the choice of Nauman is indeed an inspired one.
Additionally, the Philadelphia Museum has organized a three part showing of his work. One of the pieces on display is his now-legendary 1967 neon piece, The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths. I’ve always loved this one.
