Bruce Nauman
Three Heads Fountain (Juliet, Andrew, Rinde) 2005
Epoxy resin and fiberglass, 253 x 533 x 533 mm.
Basin approximately 203 x 3657 x 3657 mm
Private Collection, courtesy of Donald Young Gallery, Chicago © ARS, NY and
DACS, London 2006
Violent Incident
Floor plan:
In the late 1980s Nauman began using taxidermists' moulds for a number of sculptures.Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) 1989 uses four such forms, almost in their raw state. Nauman has radically altered the familiar animal shapes by displacing heads and limbs in a rejection of anatomical logic. The gruesome creatures resemble the results of some horrific experiment, a quality enhanced by today's genetic tampering and the advent of cloning. Because the sculptures are hung at head height, we are immediately implicated and are forced to confront our own moral behaviour and humankind's treatment of nature.
At this time Nauman also began to cast human heads. Retaining evidence of the working process has always been important to him as a means to reveal and question the nature of art making. During the casting process, the sitters breathe through a tube – the 'plug' mentioned in several titles and sometimes left visible in finished works. Nauman extends this idea in the recent Three Heads Fountain (Juliet, Andrew, Rinde) 2005. Water is pumped into the back of each head like an intravenous drip before being sprayed through punctures in the face. Although a violation, it is as if the water gives life before it drains away.
Hanging from the ceiling like mobiles, the heads and animals are at once playful and horrific, a ploy by the artist to elicit a conflicting set of responses in the viewer. Other works employ a similar strategy: the prank played by the couple in Violent Incident 1993 that goes wrong, or the neon figures that continuously slap each other in Double Slap in the Face 1985 – a violence undermined through endless repetition.
| Works from this section | ||||
 Untitled (Three Large Animals) 1989  Tate
Collection |
 Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) 1989 enlarge |
 Two Heads Double Size 1989 enlarge |
 Rinde Head/Andrew Head (Plug to Nose) on Wax Base
1989 enlarge |
|
Bruce Nauman
Double Slap in the Face 1985
Neon tubing with clear glass tubing suspension frame, 760 x 1270 x 135 mm
© ARS, NY and DACS, London 2006, courtesy of the Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart
Double Slap in the Face 1985
Neon tubing with clear glass tubing suspension frame, 760 x 1270 x 135 mm
© ARS, NY and DACS, London 2006, courtesy of the Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart
Bruce Nauman
Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) 1989
Foam, wax and wire, 1422 x 3759 x 3683 mm.
Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2006
Untitled (Two Wolves, Two Deer) 1989
Foam, wax and wire, 1422 x 3759 x 3683 mm.
Froehlich Collection, Stuttgart © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2006
