COPENHAGEN.- Copenhagen Contemporary announced the extension of the successful Bruce Nauman show. With this move CC takes part in an international celebration of the American artist, who turns 75 this December. In the year to come his work will be exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Tate Modern in London. Copenhagen Contemporary is the first art institution in Scandinavia to present a comprehensive exhibition of Nauman’s work, including several of his most important pieces borrowed from institutions such as the Guggenheim in New York and MCA in Chicago. The exhibition has been received with great enthusiasm by critics and audiences in Denmark and abroad.
Throughout his long career Bruce Nauman (b. 1941) has worked with many media and materials. His artistic practice ranges from traditional modes of expression such as drawing, photography and sculpture through neon works and video to installation and performance art. Nauman’s extensive oeuvre explores fundamental concepts like boredom, repetition and irritation. Using claustrophobic installations, endurance-straining performances and intricate wordplay in neon, Nauman creates situations in which the viewer becomes physically or mentally disoriented, teased or challenged.
Since the 70s Bruce Nauman has been one of the most important artists in the development of art that involves the viewer as an active part of the work. The exhibition at CC shows several sides of Nauman’s artistic activity, not least the spatial works into which the exhibition visitor is invited to step. In these spaces Nauman bombards the senses of the visitor with a variety of impressions that may trigger feelings of fascination, claustrophobia, mental disorientation or straightforward irritation.
Bruce Nauman has had major solo exhibitions at the biggest art museums, and his works are featured in collections at the leading art museums all over the world, such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. In 2009 he won the Golden Lion with his exhibition in the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
