Turning Ordinary Actions into Art with Bruce Nauman | Art21

<v ->I don't generally think 
about large audiences.

I think about, who would I like to show this to?

Who would I, that came over to visit,

would I say, "Let me show you this"?

(sculpture grinds)

If it meets that,

then I figure a lot of people can look at it.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, okay, okay.

All right, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, okay, okay.

All right, okay, okay, okay,

okay, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.
(humming)

(humming and trilling)
(camcorder beeps)

Last winter we had a lot of mice in the studio.

And I got rid of most of them.

Then I was sitting around here,

not having a very good project.

So I set up this infrared camera at night

in different places, and see what happens.

And I'm getting, oh, usually 
three or four different events,

(Bruce chuckles)

things happening with the mice,

a mouse or two coming through, and the cat.

And so far they've never 
happened at the same time.

And then every morning when I come in here

and replay what's been captured,

it's like a little meditation,

because you can't really watch 
any one part of the screen

or you'll miss something 
that happens in another part,

because it happens pretty 
fast and it's real short.

So you have to kind of not watch anything

so that you can be aware of everything.

(footsteps)

This is...

oh, a project I said I'd get involved in

probably almost a year and a half or two years ago

for the Wisconsin sesquicentennial.

And it's a portfolio of prints

by artists either from Wisconsin

or we've had some lived in Wisconsin

or something to do with Wisconsin.

And I lived in Wisconsin quite a bit of my life.

I think I'm about finished with it.

I just wrote "Wisconsin sesquicentennial project"

on these three plates.

I didn't start trying to be an artist

until I was a couple of years into college.

And I've never understood 
why I decided at that point

that I could, but I did,

because I was doing very well at the other stuff.

Or I recognized that I didn't 
have the passion about it,

mathematics and physics,

that friends of mine had that 
were doing the same stuff.

And I saw that in art.

And for whatever reason I switched.

I needed a different way to approach

the idea of being an artist.

(engine starts)

This runs an hour.

And that's how long it took 
to do what I was doing.

And I wasn't sure, when I 
finished it, if anybody would

take it seriously as a work of art,

and I don't know how many 
people do, anyway. (chuckles)

It turned out to be kind of interesting to watch

and watch more than once.

In the studio I don't do a lot of work

that requires repetitive activity.

I spend a lot of time looking and thinking

and then trying to find the most efficient way

to get what I want,

whether it's drawing or sculpture

or casting plaster or whatever.

But part of the enjoyment I take in it

is finding the most efficient way to do it.

(post thuds)

(onlooker laughs)
(Bruce mumbles)

<v Onlooker>Huh?</v>
Scared me.

<v Onlooker>Sorry.</v>

Good job!

<v ->And I don't have any 
specific step to take,

because I don't start the same way every time.

There is knowing when it's enough

and you can leave it alone.

And a lot of it's accidental, 
the result of cheap equipment.

(Bruce laughs)
Accidents.

The accidents kind of keep 
it real too, and I like that.

But it's what keeps me in the studio,

always being surprised.

So there's some joy in there too. (laughs)

When it all kind of works, and you say, "Ah."

Makes it okay.

(rope whacks)

(horse hooves clopping)

When I got involved with the horses,

and I was in my 40s or 
something before that happened,

and so I had to learn a lot

from people that had been 
doing it all their lives,

and so sometimes it's hard to communicate.

It's been interesting for me

to work with these cowboys and 
ranchers and be around them.

And they're hard jobs that 
they do, physically hard jobs.

Good guys, take a lot of pride in their work,

and they like to do it efficiently and cleanly.

It's not different from the way

I like to work in the studio.

Even though the studio looks like a big mess,

I like my mind to at least try 
and be (chuckles) efficient.

I really would have a hard time being here

without that part of my life, just being out here

and having kind of a real good reason to be here.

It's hard to not let it take up too much time,

because it sure could.

But the other part of me that's an artist

is not gonna be satisfied 
with the ranching either.

Some things flow from one to the other,

and some can't or don't.

This...

In the last few years I've been 
working on several projects,

or a couple of projects,

well, several that involve the idea of stairs

or bleachers and stadiums.

I was thinking about having a bunch of bleachers

that went up and down, you could walk up and down,

and then inverting them and 
hanging them from the ceiling.

It's sort of like subverting the function.

I always thought that the idea

that you can make something 
that appears to be functional,

but when you try and use it,

you can't quite figure out 
what its function might be.

And that's, in the end, what its function is,

is for you to figure out 
what to do with it, I guess.

In fact, they seem to be using it that way,

eating lunch and just sitting out in the sun.

(footfalls)

There is no regular rhythm to going up and down.

You have to take each step and watch it,

and so it requires you to 
pay quite a lot of attention.

I'm not even sure if you need to walk on it.

But, of course everybody does.

It's the intention that changes it from a stairway

to a stairway as a work of art. (chuckles)

Because I said so. (chuckles)

I studied mathematics for a while,

and one of the things that I always liked about it

is that there were things you could prove,

but they were just things you proved,

they didn't change the 
structure of mathematics any.

There were things that people have done and proved

that changed the structure of mathematics,

but it had to be really clear,

and sometimes it was very elegant.

Having to say it out loud,

having to explain what you're 
doing, forces you to be clear.

You can't kind of just fumble through

and get something and say,

"Well, that's what I meant to do all along."

That is the part that I think about in my work;

making sure that what I'm doing is really clear.

And then it's available.

And those are the kinds of 
things that you look for.

You look in art, and this changes the structure

of how you can think about 
art, and it's there for you.

And those are wonderful things

when you're in their presence.

So that's what we are looking for.

Thank you, thank you, thank 
you, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you, thank 
you, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you, thank 
you, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you, thank you!