Reading "Please pay attention please", demonstrating interviews and personal writings concerning Bruce Nauman's work still remains illusive to me. As his puns and word usage, you can wrap your brain around only a section of it, with another part still just out of reach. It is interesting to see that one of Nauman's major influences was the writing of Ludwidg Wittgenstein, a Viennese philosopher that was concerned with language and how systems of communication illuminate/obfuscate the physical systems associated with them. These concepts of language systems, illuminating and obfuscating the environment is prevalent in much of Nauman's work. Nauman's use of media is also intriguing. Although he started off as a painter in Wisconsin, his loyalty to one media is nonexistent. He incorporates all media in order to propel the concept, and uses the most apt material to complete the concept of the piece. Certain performance pieces are done solely by the gallery, where Nauman calls in the instructions of models and performers, to video pieces of himself performing acts in relation to the environment, and then execute sculptural pieces like "From Hand to mouth" which is wax forming only the hand/neck/arm of the artist, a very disjointed body piece. Interviews I have read by the artist suggest that in most of his physical work in the gallery, Nauman prefers to force the viewer to envision his art, designing the space in order for the individual to not make their own art out the piece (i.e. when in a Nauman space, you are a part of his art not your own).
Words. A word. the word. the good word. Your words. My words. Nauman is interested in addressing the mode of communication we all share, even though have not standardized. His use of words become an exercise in the futile, and the nature of meaning/ or sometimes lack of, behind them. In his more recent video works " I talk You listen", the audience is surrounded by video screens of various people of all backgrounds addressing the viewer by saying permutations of " I will talk, and you will listen" or " You listen and then I will talk" and on and on. The work becomes less of what they are saying and focuses more on how it is said. Some are fairly passive request, while others seem to be very violent in nature. Once the structure of language is broken down, only intention remains. Despite the various media employed in Nauman's work, the prevailing idea of language and words always rises to the top. Some works are simply neon lights with words suggesting or commanding. Nauman's Permutation of grammar reminds me of the work of Gertrude Stein. Although I have had limited exposure to Stein's work, language and the permutation of grammar to synthesize new meaning is dominant in her work as well. Through basic grammar structure and sentencing, it seems that Nauman attempts to stimulate new meaning out of permutation, and sometimes discovering that content and meaning does not exist. His work, like his word games, contain limited illumination, followed by the un-namable or indefinable, the area where words eventually fail.
