{"title":"Bruce Nauman","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"clea-rsky-clear-sky","title":"Clea Rsky [Clear Sky]","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBruce Nauman’s artist’s books often appear deceptively simple, yet they are constructed around carefully orchestrated mysteries and ambiguities. “At times cryptic, at times funny, and always intellectually and emotionally challenging, Nauman touches the raw nerves of contemporary life while making private feelings and hidden doubt publicly accessible,” writes Robert Storr in his introduction to the artist’s 1995 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAmong Nauman’s most enigmatic publications of the 1960s, “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClea Rsky”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLA AIR”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e function less as illustrated books than as conceptual machines: works whose structures themselves generate questions and provoke reflection. These publications are organized around fundamental inquiries that anticipate the logic of conceptual art: What is an image? What transforms something into a picture? How much meaning can be contained within a title, a color, or the physical form of a book?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOften described as containing ten photographs of the sky above Los Angeles, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClea Rsky,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e in fact, contains no photographs and was produced without the use of a camera. Instead, the publication consists entirely of printed blue pages designed to evoke the experience of looking at the sky while simultaneously exposing the illusion of that perception. As Nauman explained in an interview: “\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClea Rsky\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e was a way to have a book that only had colored pages—pictures of the sky. I like the idea that you are looking into an image of the sky, but it is just a page; you are not really looking into anything … \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLA Air\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e was the same idea, but it was also a response to \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClea Rsky\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e using polluted colors instead.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough these works, Bruce Nauman transforms the book into a cartography of perception and uncertainty, in which the boundaries between image and object, representation and reality, are continually unsettled.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54030110425427,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/CLEARSKYnew.png?v=1781880939"},{"product_id":"l-a-air","title":"L A AIR","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBruce Nauman’s artist’s books often appear deceptively simple, yet they are meticulously constructed around carefully orchestrated mysteries and ambiguities. As Robert Storr writes in his introduction to Nauman’s 1995 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, “at times cryptic, at times funny, and always intellectually and emotionally challenging, Nauman touches the raw nerves of contemporary life while making private feelings and hidden doubt publicly accessible.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Clea Rsky” and “LA Air” are among his most enigmatic publications as they operate less as illustrated books than as conceptual mechanisms. These works are built around fundamental inquiries that reveal the concerns of conceptual art: What constitutes an image? What transforms something into a picture? How much meaning can reside in a title, a color, or the physical structure of a book itself?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOften discussed together, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClea Rsky\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e and \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLA Air\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e are para-photographic experiments that reconsider the relationship between perception and representation. The images they present are “photographs” of the sky produced without a camera. Each publication consists entirely of printed colored pages that evoke the experience of looking upward while simultaneously revealing the constructed nature of that experience. As Nauman explained in an interview, \"Clear Sky was a way to have a book that had only coloured pages- pictures of the sky. I like the idea that you were looking into an image of the sky, but it is just a page: you're not really looking into anything - you're looking at a flat page. LA Air was the same idea, but it was also a response to Clear Sky using polluted colours instead.\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThrough these works, Nauman transforms the book into a cartography of perception and uncertainty, inviting the viewer to question the fluid boundaries between seeing and believing.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54030120649043,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/LAAIR_6de34c3f-4e83-4fa7-a395-2e9acaf47719.png?v=1782396127"},{"product_id":"small-fires-burning-after-ed-ruscha-after-bruce-nauman-after","title":"Small Fires Burning (after Ed Ruscha after Bruce Nauman after)","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThis artist-designed multiple is an act of meta-appropriation, situated within the lineage of Ed Ruscha and Bruce Nauman. Known for his conceptual practice of quoting, altering, and riffing on works by earlier conceptual and Pop artists, Jonathan Monk often interrogates questions of authorship and artistic inheritance.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn this poster, Monk takes as his reference not only Ruscha’s landmark publication “Various Small Fires and Milk” (1964), but also Nauman’s homage-poster “Burning Small Fires” (1968), which itself appropriated Ruscha’s work. Monk’s title, “Small Fires Burning (after Ed Ruscha after Bruce Nauman after)”, makes this chain of references explicit, reifying the trajectory and positioning his contribution as the latest link in a decades-long snowball effect of appropriation.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMonk’s multiple was exhibited in 2022 as part of the \"Burning Matter\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(255, 42, 0);\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eexhibition at Studio 454 in Venice, alongside the works of Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, and other artists playing with fire.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54415775039827,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/SmallFiresBurning.jpg?v=1785138645"},{"product_id":"slant-step-book","title":"Slant Step Book","description":"","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54571825070419,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/DSC4361.png?v=1786548154"},{"product_id":"burning-small-fires","title":"Burning Small Fires","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003eBruce Nauman and Ed Ruscha share profound conceptual affinities. In her profile of Nauman for \u003cem\u003eArtforum\u003c\/em\u003e (Summer 1986), Coosje van Bruggen recounts how, shortly after abandoning painting himself, Nauman encountered Ruscha’s work for the first time and was excited by the possibilities it opened up. Works such as\u003cem\u003e Damage \u003c\/em\u003e(1964), and \u003cem\u003eBurning Gas Station\u003c\/em\u003e (1966) struck him as being as much about thought and perception as about painting itself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn 1968, Nauman produced the artist’s book \u003cem\u003eBurning Small Fires\u003c\/em\u003e, featuring fifteen photographs of himself burning a copy of Ruscha’s 1964 edition of \u003cem\u003eVarious Small Fires and Milk\u003c\/em\u003e. Like Ruscha’s book, which contains fifteen images of small fires, Nauman’s work comprises fifteen photographs; one, larger than the others, reveals his hand, extending the homage from the photographic into the gestural and performative.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs art historian Taylor Walsh has noted, while Ruscha treated burning as meaningless, Nauman’s act reintroduced something of the ritualistic power that fire had acquired amid the era’s countercultural protests. \u003cem\u003eBurning Small Fires \u003c\/em\u003ethus resonates with a year marked by mounting opposition to the Vietnam War and widespread political and social unrest.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThere is no record of the two artists discussing the book, and Nauman was characteristically volatile when questioned about it, leaving the boundary between homage and iconoclasm deliberately fluid. Ruscha, for his part, often joked about the fate of his inexpensive artist’s books, confessing to A. D. Coleman that\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e his publications often \"end up in the trash\" (\u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/em\u003e, August 27, 1972). Nauman’s gesture can therefore be read as both an irreverent tribute to Ruscha and a literal enactment of the precarious status of the artist’s book as object.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNauman’s poster-book was exhibited in 2022 as part of \u003cem\u003eBurning Matter\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e at Studio 454 in Venice, alongside works by Ed Ruscha, Jonathan Monk, Tiane Doan na Champassak, and other artists exploring fire as both image and material.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54668804129107,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/DSC4474_40de52aa-bba8-4b61-9b9f-dd2c7fe0c45e.png?v=1789196112"}],"url":"https:\/\/metabooks.art\/collections\/bruce-nauman.oembed","provider":"Metabooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}