Photo by 16 Miles of String
Bruce Nauman has made a work that speaks to people. Actually, he made a work that speaks through people.
Enter a minimally-installed gallery and on either side of the room you’ll see a series of white square boards suspended on cables facing one another. There’s a cacophony of sound and as you approach the squares you note that they’re actually speakers. Through some audio engineering wizardry, a device has been adhered to the back of each square which sends a signal across the board, effectively turning it into an amplifier. You go to the middle of the room and stand between one of the sets of speakers. You hear a looped logorrheic stream: an endless recitation of days of the week: “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday…” But then the speaker starts skipping words and gaps in the week begin to emerge in a pattern of Nauman’s devising. The speaker is male, serious. You walk to the next pair and the voice is now a child, plucky. The next pair, a woman, robotic. The pattern of words spoken is the same from speaker to speaker. Only the intonation and timbre change.
You step back and you think: I need to conduct a fake interview with Bruce Nauman about this work, Days.
Perry Garvin: So let’s jump right into this. Why use board and not a speaker?
Bruce Nauman: It looked cooler. [Laughs] Well that’s just part of it. I wanted to create as little visual distraction as possible and thanks to some amazing audio engineering technology that was possible.
PG: There are a lot of art historical references going on in Days. Can you talk about a few?
BN: I’d rather not get into that.
PG: Why not?
BN: I didn’t make the work about “art historical references.” Any that are present are either coincidental or part of the visual culture. I’d rather people focus on the work itself.
PG: Okay, fair enough. But let me casually ignore that and ask you about one I couldn’t ignore and actually shaped the way I saw the piece: On Kawara. From his date paintings that reference the passage of time to his recent work, “One Million Years” presented at David Zwirner where speakers count from one to a million. Days seemed like – how can I put this – maybe a twist on what On has been doing for years.
BN: I think it’s fair to say that there are some similarities. On has always been interested in the mutability of time and the systems we create to help order it. He’s also a consummate performer, even if his performance is “in absentia.” I guess in Days I wanted to leverage the predictability of reciting the days of the week but then disrupt it by leaving holes. I mean, the piece is quite simple: it’s a meditation on “where does the time go.”
PG: You know, I always think about that when I look at your Mapping the Studio at Dia:Beacon. I sit there in a darkened room watching rodents scurrying by, waiting for something to happen, and I myself start to lose track of time and start wondering where my time is going while watching the piece.
[Laughter]
Then there’s the whole Sol LeWitt reference at the entrance to the piece where you lay out the schematic of the recitation. And I picked up some Janet Cardiff Forty Piece Motet allusions and of course Robert Irwin and that minimal “cool” look. I guess the space just seemed to drip with a lot of very hip visual clichés of contemporary art: minimalism, systems-based works… Would you agree this is a very fashionable piece?
BN: No, I wouldn’t. Or I don’t really care. I designed the work to communicate as efficiently and elegantly as possible. If that means it has a certain “look” or adopts certain references to other artists or styles then that is pure coincidence or at least such a part of my world that it’s incorporated into the work. Let’s not forget: I’ve been in this game for decades.
PG: That’s true. On the same day that I saw Days, I saw a number of your pieces scattered in other exhibitions throughout MoMA including the permanent collection and the photography of sculpture exhibition. You probably have work on display right now in about four museums in New York. Not to sound like a sycophant, but you are a major artist – probably the most likely among the current crop to be remembered for decades hence. Aren’t your prices going through the roof?
BN: You know, I don’t pay attention to that. I’m comfortable and I’ve been lucky to be able to keep making work over the years. I don’t for one minute take for granted the reception I’ve received and I just hope to keep making work that speaks to people.
PG: I would say that there’s a bullying quality in your work. Or, if not bullying, aggressive. Forcing people to walk between tight walls, pushing your face in extreme directions, designing neon that blasts photons at people, recording videos of clowns doing obsessive compulsive actions, or this piece which just bombards the viewer with words. People in the installation were genuinely cowed!
BN: [Silence] I don’t know how to respond to this.
PG: Is aggression something you value in your work.
BN: Well, I’ve never gone for art that is limp-wristed and mousy. I want to make assertive pieces that stand on their own and that stand up to the viewer. Let’s not forget that viewers of works of art have tremendous power. For one – they think. They are sophisticated machines honed over millennia and a work of art – basically a few ideas an artist comes up with and seals in amber – is supposed to compete? That’s why I think that assertive works of art are important. That’s the word I’d prefer to use to describe some of the work I make: assertive.
PG: And Days is assertive?
BN: Sure.
PG: Can you tell me a funny anecdote about Days?
BN: I don’t know how funny this is but that kid, Justin, that recorded one of the loops. He sounds very peppy in the recording because, I swear, that was the most hyperactive kid I met. We found him through a friend and he came to the studio and basically couldn’t sit still. We gave him the script and he kept fumbling over words and saying words twice and messing it up. I think it took three hours until he finally got it all out without any mistakes and we were so grateful. Was that a good anecdote?
PG: Terrific. OK – let me ask one other question. The “wow” factor. It’s pretty cool that there are square boards that are speaking. That alone is pretty exciting since it seems like a new technology (or at least something I’ve not often seen). I went into the room and saw that and was amazed and then that amazement was transferred to the piece itself. Do you think that this work is getting an illegitimate boost in acclaim because of its technological sophistication?
BN: No. We live in a world saturated in high tech stuff. A talking board? Are you kidding me? This is a “wow” factor? Hardly – it’s a talking board. You get over it and then you get on to experiencing the work and listening to the speakers and the words and decoding patterns and, if I’m successful, taking a bit of your day to think about time and daily, lived experience.
