In this work, shown on two stacked monitors, Bruce Nauman washes his hands with a thoroughness bordering on obsession. Each from a different vantage point, the two monitors present a simple everyday action, extended to fill almost an hour. The work is a self-portrait in which the hands serve as a metaphor for the artist’s creative potency. The camera’s unorthodox angle, the image’s shifting colors and the repetitive movement unite in giving this commonplace act an hypnotic effect. Bruce Nauman is particularly renowned for his video performances of the 1970s in which his body is the focus of improvised, repetitive acts. The works produced in the ‘90s refer back to the strategy he pursed in his earlier career.
Bruce Nauman
Director
Bang the Drum Slowly61%
The Eyes of Orson Welles70%
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back64%
Mifune: The Last Samurai71%
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction69%
To Be Takei71%
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life73%
For the Love of Spock73%
Gilbert67%
The Grandmother66%
I Am Heath Ledger74%
Bill Burr: Paper Tiger74%
Avatar: Creating the World of Pandora64%
Val71%
The Battered Bastards of Baseball74%
Nude93%
Dick Johnson Is Dead71%
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers66%
Birth of the Dragon58%
An Adventure in Space and Time76%
