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Bruce Nauman

BRUCE NAUMAN

Bruce Nauman: Prints, Books, and Ephemera Online Viewing Room David Zwirner 18 December 2018–10 January 2019 Online Only
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Press Release

For its next Viewing Room, David Zwirner is pleased to present a selection of prints, books, and ephemera by Bruce Nauman that illustrates his ceaseless innovation. Encompassing three decades of the artist’s multifaceted practice, from 1969 to 1995, the works include rare publications, video, postcards, and portfolios, as well as lithographs, drypoints, and etchings. For Nauman, printmaking has long been an important mode for exploring language and material as it offers, according to the artist, a ‘directness,’ while also ‘allowing the technique to be a buffer between me and the image’ and providing ‘a sense of ritualizing the image.’1 A major survey, Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts, is currently on view at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.

This selection encompasses collaborations with renowned printers and publishers including Gemini G.E.L., Cirrus Editions, Arber & Son Editions, and Brooke Alexander Editions; contributions to seminal artists’ books and portfolios such as Phil Weidmann’s 1969 Slant Step Book and William Copley’s S.M.S. (Shit Must Stop) No. 5; and totems of Nauman’s career, including the seminal Pay Attention (1973) and irreverent Clown Taking a Shit (1988), which references his iconic multi-channel video installation Clown Torture (1987) where the artist explores the dynamics of humour and horror through the figure of the clown.

The Viewing Room also highlights the spirit of experimentation that is central to Nauman’s engagement with artistic identity and routine. ‘When I think about doing art, I think about it as an investigation of the function of an artist, or the function of myself as an artist,’ Nauman explained in 1989. ‘Each piece of work is a result of what I do in the studio every day, year by year.’2

© 2018 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

1 Bruce Nauman, as quoted in Christopher Cordes, ‘Talking with Bruce Nauman: An Interview’ (1989), in Bruce Nauman: Prints 1970-89. A Catalogue Raisonné (New York: Castelli Graphics, 1989), p. 22.

2 Ibid., p. 34.

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About the Artist

Bruce Nauman likes to work in isolation on his farm, removing himself from the buzzing chatter of city life and the art world. His practice is shaped by personal interests such as ethics, politics, the body and language. Although he works across a range of media such as video installation, performance, sculpture, neon and photography, he is known as a conceptual artist whose work often unsettles his audience, making them aware of their own physical bodies and beliefs.

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About the Gallery
David Zwirner is a contemporary art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, and Hong Kong, and currently represents more than eighty artists and estates. The gallery has been home to innovative, singular, and pioneering exhibitions across a variety of media and genres. Active in both the primary and secondary markets, David Zwirner has helped foster the careers of some of the most influential artists working today and has maintained long-term representation of a wide-ranging, international group of artists.
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519, 525 & 533 West 19th Street
New York
United States
Opening Hours
Monday – Friday
10am – 6pm

The David Zwirner Books Shop is now open at 525 West 19th Street, on Tue-Sat weekly from 10 AM-6PM.
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New York 519, 525 & 533 West 19th Street
David Zwirner contemporary art gallery in New York 19th Street United States
David Zwirner
519, 525 & 533 West 19th Street, New York, United States
+1 212 727 2070
http://www.davidzwirner.com

Opening hours
Monday – Friday
10am – 6pm

The David Zwirner Books Shop is now open at 525 West 19th Street, on Tue-Sat weekly from 10 AM-6PM.
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