{"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\/products\/burning-small-fires","provider":"Metabooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}