- Bruce Nauman: Raw MaterialsBy Emma Dexter
- Bruce Nauman: Theaters Of ExperienceBy Christine Hoffmann, Susan Cross, Bruce Nauman
- AC: Bruce Nauman: Mapping the Studio I (Fat Chance John Cage)By Kaspar Konig, Christine Litz, Bruce Nauman
- A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960sBy Constance M. Lewallen, Anne M. Wagner, Robert R. Riley, Robert Storr
Important Art by Bruce Nauman
The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) (1967)
Created in the studio Nauman established in an abandoned grocery store in San Francisco and modeled after the neon advertisement signs nearby, this seminal work acts as an advertisement of a different kind. Its colorful, circular text proclaims the words of the title: "The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths." It is characteristic of Nauman's early neon works, and typical of the tone of dry satire in much of his work. Speaking of high art in the materials of low culture and advertising, it sets up a clash that prompts us to question old assumptions about the purpose of art and artists. Might artists be ordinary salesmen, just like so many others?
South American Triangle (1981)
In this first of several "suspended chair" political sculptures, the chair that is commonly complicit in torture (i.e. an electric chair or interrogation chair) becomes the disoriented torture victim. As Nauman has said, "I thought of using a chair that would somehow become the figure: torturing a chair and hanging it up or strapping it down." Like similar hanging sculptures of Nauman's, it was intended to mount a critique of totalitarian regimes that then held power in South America and South Africa. It also refers to the space outside of the studio, as well as the fundamental structure of life: an atom with electrons encircling it, or the nucleus and membrane of cell, composed of raw and unforgiving materials.
One Hundred Live and Die (1984)
Consisting of four columns containing 100 words relating life and death with different actions, emotions, and colors, this simultaneously poetic and vulgar barrage of lights and hues epitomizes the human experience. According to a complex algorithm, one phrase after another flashes on and off individually, followed by each column lit up, and culminating in the illumination of the entire piece, creating a visual symphony that characterizes Nauman's love of word play combined with social commentary, as well as his interest in color relationships.
Influences and Connections

- Joseph Kosuth
- Robert Morris
- Man Ray
- Jasper Johns
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Leo Castelli
- Susan Rothenberg
- Wayne Thiebaud
- William T. Wiley
- Minimalism
- Conceptual Art
- Process Art
- Matthew Barney
- Jenny Holzer
- Damien Hirst
- Marina Abramović
- Greg Colson