Bruce Nauman
28 May - 10 Oct 2010
Bruce Nauman Model for Room with My Soul Left Out Room That Does Not Care, 1984 Holz, Depafit, Klebeband, Draht, Glühbirne, Dispersion, Bleistift, Leim, 152,4 x 152,4 x 152,4 cm Friedrich Christian Flick Collection im Hamburger Bahnhof © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010. Foto: Thomas Bruns, Berlin
BRUCE NAUMAN
Dream Passage
28 May - 10 October 2010
‘Dream Passage’ marks the first major retrospective by American artist Bruce Nauman in Berlin. The exhibition, hosted by the National Gallery in the Hamburger Bahnhof and set to open in summer 2010, has been occasioned by the successful installation of the spectacular architectural sculpture entitled ‘Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care’ from 1984 that was accepted by the National Gallery as a gift and which is now due to be permanently erected in Hall 5 of the Hamburger Bahnhof’s Rieckhallen in accordance with the artist’s own instructions. The whole-room sculpture intended for visitors to walk through is the high point of a series of works entitled ‘Dream Passages’ inspired by a dream dreamt by the artist himself. The work has not been seen since its first installation in 1984 in the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York.
At the end of the 1960s, Nauman began constructing corridors and rooms that could be entered by visitors which evoke the dual sensations of being entrapped and debarment. Several outstanding examples of these ‘architectures of experience’ are on show in the museum’s main hall, among them the complex piece entitled ‘Corridor Installation (Nick Wilder Installation)’ from 1970, in which visitors, recorded on video camera, are confronted by their own image as they pass through.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, explicitly political connotations have come to the fore in Nauman’s work. Testament to this can be seen for instance in the aggressive aspect of sculptures, such as those that feature hanging metal chairs, as in ‘Musical Chair’ from 1983, which the artist used to expressed his criticism at torture and violence in totalitarian regimes. Further examples of the political nature of his work can be seen in complex neon works like ‘American Violence’ (1981–82) or ‘Sex and Death / Double 69’ (1985) whose theme are the connection between sex, violence and death.
While the exhibition is taken up with the artist’s ‘architectures of experience’ and his exploration of the themes of violence and brutality in the museum’s main hall, in the Rieckhallen, the focus is placed on the diversity of the sculptural pieces and Nauman’s work with language and the gestural. The bulk of the exhibition is made up by the unique collection of the artist’s works currently found in the National Gallery on loan from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection. The collection contains key works from nearly all the artist’s main periods and are presented here together with a few pieces on loan from other collections.
Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue that has been devised around some 35 keywords, each considered to play a significant part in forming an understanding of Bruce Nauman’s work. The catalogue features a short text on each word and also includes a collection of source material that offers the reader an insight into the intellectual context of the artist’s work.
Dream Passage
28 May - 10 October 2010
‘Dream Passage’ marks the first major retrospective by American artist Bruce Nauman in Berlin. The exhibition, hosted by the National Gallery in the Hamburger Bahnhof and set to open in summer 2010, has been occasioned by the successful installation of the spectacular architectural sculpture entitled ‘Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care’ from 1984 that was accepted by the National Gallery as a gift and which is now due to be permanently erected in Hall 5 of the Hamburger Bahnhof’s Rieckhallen in accordance with the artist’s own instructions. The whole-room sculpture intended for visitors to walk through is the high point of a series of works entitled ‘Dream Passages’ inspired by a dream dreamt by the artist himself. The work has not been seen since its first installation in 1984 in the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York.
At the end of the 1960s, Nauman began constructing corridors and rooms that could be entered by visitors which evoke the dual sensations of being entrapped and debarment. Several outstanding examples of these ‘architectures of experience’ are on show in the museum’s main hall, among them the complex piece entitled ‘Corridor Installation (Nick Wilder Installation)’ from 1970, in which visitors, recorded on video camera, are confronted by their own image as they pass through.
Since the beginning of the 1980s, explicitly political connotations have come to the fore in Nauman’s work. Testament to this can be seen for instance in the aggressive aspect of sculptures, such as those that feature hanging metal chairs, as in ‘Musical Chair’ from 1983, which the artist used to expressed his criticism at torture and violence in totalitarian regimes. Further examples of the political nature of his work can be seen in complex neon works like ‘American Violence’ (1981–82) or ‘Sex and Death / Double 69’ (1985) whose theme are the connection between sex, violence and death.
While the exhibition is taken up with the artist’s ‘architectures of experience’ and his exploration of the themes of violence and brutality in the museum’s main hall, in the Rieckhallen, the focus is placed on the diversity of the sculptural pieces and Nauman’s work with language and the gestural. The bulk of the exhibition is made up by the unique collection of the artist’s works currently found in the National Gallery on loan from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection. The collection contains key works from nearly all the artist’s main periods and are presented here together with a few pieces on loan from other collections.
Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue that has been devised around some 35 keywords, each considered to play a significant part in forming an understanding of Bruce Nauman’s work. The catalogue features a short text on each word and also includes a collection of source material that offers the reader an insight into the intellectual context of the artist’s work.