Bruce Nauman is regarded as one of the most influential artists of the post-war era. Born in 1941 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he has worked across sculpture, performance, video, sound and neon, never bound to a single approach. His work keeps returning to unresolved questions of body and space, language and meaning, presence and absence, all of which begin with a question that seems simple yet is deeply complex: what does an artist do when alone in the studio?
In 2000, Nauman revisited this question by stepping out of the studio. He installed infrared cameras to record the inside of his studio in New Mexico throughout the night, creating an installation of seven large projections with ambient sound. Visitors are invited to spend time in a space that seems empty, yet at any moment a mouse may dart across the floor, a moth may flutter past the camera, or a cat may wander into the frame.
As we begin to pay attention, moments that seem empty reveal countless overlapping events. Just as John Cage showed that silence lets us hear the sounds already around us, Nauman creates conditions for events to become visible without the artist intervening. Shown in Bangkok, the work also invites another kind of observation, one that makes room for stillness and lets things happen on their own when we learn to let go and do less.
information provided by event organizer
