Eating My Words

I think the point where language starts to break down as a useful tool for communication is the edge where poetry or art occurs

Floor plan:

Nauman first explored what he calls the 'functional edges' of language in Eleven Color Photographs 1966-7/70. The individual titles of these photographs are as significant as the images to which they belong, offering both instructions for, and descriptions of, physically performed acts, and linguistic puns that provide the basis for their visual manifestations.

The works in this room incorporate multiple forms of wordplay – puns, palindromes, anagrams, repetition – to manipulate language to the point at which meanings shift or multiply and syntax no longer functions. In First Poem Piece 1968, the phrase 'you may not want to be here' is transposed onto the intersections of a grid engraved on a steel slab and transformed over eighteen lines by omitting a combination of words and replacing 'here' with 'hear'. By displacing the component parts of the phrase, Nauman undermines the capacity of the individual words to convey finite meaning.

Many of Nauman's word games have been performed in neon, a medium that stresses the object-like quality of letters and words rather than their function. Several of the neon signs illuminate in sequence so that letters, words or phrases continually repurpose themselves and again deny fixed meaning.

The audible, spoken word is also important. Good Boy Bad Boy 1985 and World Peace (Received) 1996 demonstrate how the meaning of words changes through repetition, the addition of alternative pronouns and variation in physical delivery. In other works, words become abstract sounds through relentless repetition.

Works in this section
Lip Sync 1969 enlarge	Good Boy Bad Boy 1985 view in Tate Collection	Double Face 1981 Tate Collection	NO (Black Slate) 1981 Tate Collection	La Brea/Art Tips/Rat Spit/Tar Pits 1972 enlarge
Life Fly Lifes Flies 1997 enlarge	M Ampere 1973 Tate Collection	RawWar 1968 Tate Collection	Raw-Raw 1970 Tate Collection	Jump (still) 1994 enlarge
Waxing Hot from Eleven Color Photographs 1966/7-70 enlarge	Make Me Think Me 1994 enlarge	Work (stills) 1994 enlarge	Run from Fear, Fun from Rear 1972 enlarge	World Peace (Received) 1996 enlarge