Bruce Nauman's pensive Conceptual art from the 1970s seems timely again

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Out successful the backmost plot of Marian Goodman Gallery successful Hollywood, a coagulated alloy square, 4 feet wide and 4 inches thick, sits connected the gravel covered ground. “Dark” is simply a legendary 1968 sculpture, 1 that caused large consternation erstwhile archetypal shown astatine an yearly acquisition contention astatine Southwestern College successful Chula Vista, southbound of San Diego, wherever it won the $1,900 archetypal prize.

Adjusted for inflation, that’s much than $17,000 contiguous — not an insignificant chunk of alteration for a ‘60s creation contest.

Some were outraged. A blank alloy plate, seemingly conscionable waiting to rust? Local sculptor Frank James Morgan, whose accepted representation busts and stylized bronzes of women had gained immoderate notice, wasn’t having it, and helium denounced Nauman’s sculpture arsenic “junk” successful a missive to the San Diego Union. Artist John Baldessari, a contention organizer conscionable past getting traction for his ain Dada-inspired anti-art, leapt to its defence successful a three-page, 18 bullet-point text.

At Goodman, the sculpture sets up “Bruce Nauman: Pasadena Years,” a modestly scaled but museum-quality survey of his enactment from 1969 to 1979, the prolific decennary erstwhile the present critically lauded creator lived successful Los Angeles. (A nonmigratory of New Mexico since then, Nauman is 83.) Two twelve works are connected view, including sculptures, installations, videotapes, drawings and prints, positive the artist’s publication “LAAir,” featuring 10 full-page colour photographs said to amusement the city’s celebrated smog. The book’s rubric makes a droll pun for “lair,” a villainous spot of information oregon death, portion his vivid, mostly monochrome abstract photographs of poisoned ambiance wittily callback fashionable Color Field paintings.

“Dark” instantly predated his determination from Northern California. The dust-up that ensued among artists and critics was different awesome that the portion was continuing to mature arsenic a halfway for the accumulation and presumption of provocative caller art.

“Dark” doesn’t look similar much. The coagulated but shallow alloy box, weighing successful astatine a reported 1.3 tons, was an illustration of a precocious emerging, stripped-down Minimalist aesthetic. The artist’s past sanction is written successful artifact letters on 1 edge, but there’s immoderate disorder implicit whether the creator oregon the schoolhouse added it aboriginal arsenic an identifier. There was besides the substance of the sculpture’s title, “Dark,” which referred to the artist’s assertion that the connection had been scrawled connected the underside of the brute slab.

Was the connection “dark” conscionable meant to picture what was nether determination — darkness, the lack of airy beneath a space-gobbling hunk of immovable material? Was it inscribed arsenic a mordant Dada riposte to the shimmering ephemerality of Light and Space art, the perceptual spatial enigmas by Robert Irwin, Doug Wheeler and others who were fashioning the archetypal wholly archetypal creation signifier to look from sunny Southern California?

Maybe. But encountering “Dark” now, thing other stands out: There is nary mode for a spectator to cognize for definite whether the connection is truly written connected the underside, beneath each that obdurate tonnage. None. It’s unknowable. A viewer, and not conscionable the gravel beneath the alloy plate, is successful the dark.

Aside from the wide “don’t touch” societal prohibition hovering successful the beingness of immoderate creation object, lifting this peculiar weighty slab is impossible. You’ll simply person to instrumentality the artist’s connection for it that the declaration is written there. The confrontation with Nauman’s sculpture is simply a blunt workout successful creator religion — an look of spot betwixt creator and audience, and an statement to play together. If you can’t assistance that, you astir apt should conscionable locomotion distant from creation — this oregon immoderate other.

Installation presumption of Bruce Nauman's 1969 "Performance Corridor" astatine Marian Goodman Gallery

That modern creation mightiness beryllium a dubious realm populated by frauds and charlatans seems quaint today, but erstwhile upon a clip it was a modular assumption. It was determination from the beginning. In 1916, astatine the archetypal large-scale U.S. accumulation of Modern American creation held successful New York City, the acerbic professional astatine The Nation mag gave the stink-eye to claims of the avant-garde’s creator seriousness.

“Many persons are astir earnestly convinced that the satellite is flat,” wrote Frank Jewett Mather, looking down his nose, “the mediocre whites of definite Southern regions are astir earnestly convinced that clay is simply a delicious comestible. But their seriousness doesn’t matter, and I deliberation that the seriousness of these Modernists matters precise little.”

Nauman, astatine a tumultuous and perplexing play of upheaval politically, socially and artistically, was getting down to basics.

For 1968, which has been called “the twelvemonth that shattered America,” specified a compact of religion astatine the halfway of “Dark” — and a declaration betwixt strangers, nary little — is nary cavalier thing. Neither is it today. Civil rights, sex equality, Vietnam, pupil protestation — truthful galore divisive crises past are being repeated now, successful our clip of advancing darkness, with Ukraine and Gaza replacing Southeast Asia. Nauman’s sculpture is thoroughly non-figurative, but its inescapable societal and governmental dimensions resonate anew.

So bash those of “Performance Corridor,” a baffling installation made erstwhile Nauman moved into a Raymond Ave. workplace the pursuing year. He was 27, with a woman and son, and they shared a rambling Craftsman location nearby, owned by curator and creation trader Walter Hopps, with creator Richard Jackson. Hopps was a wealthiness of accusation astir Dada godfather Marcel Duchamp, whose present legendary 1963 retrospective helium had organized for the Pasadena Art Museum. Nauman paid adjacent attraction to Duchamp’s penchant for an creation of puns and conundrums.

As a sculpture, “Performance Corridor” mightiness beryllium adjacent much initially mute than “Dark,” but it ends up speaking volumes. The corridor, 8 feet gangly and 20 feet long, is built from mean partition committee and exposed two-by-four struts. One extremity is flush against a assemblage wall, and looking into the unembellished corridor from the unfastened extremity isn’t promising. Roughly shoulder-width, it invites 1 idiosyncratic astatine a clip to locomotion down the hallway looking consecutive ahead.

Bruce Nauman, "Performance Corridor, 1969; partition committee and wood

Arriving astatine the blank assemblage partition astatine the extremity of a restricted, uneventful walk, one’s instantly puzzled thought is, “Why americium I here?”

And, aft all, that is the question, isn’t it? The show successful “Performance Corridor” isn’t thing Nauman is doing, beyond performing a set-up for immoderate creation spectator to beryllium nudged into wondering: Why americium I here?

Existential enquiry is an creator staple, but typically it tends toward large gestures and expansive declarations — spot extravagant and flamboyant Abstract Expressionist paintings of the late-1940s and 1950s for examples. Nauman’s, however, is refreshingly without illusions oregon pretensions.

Also successful 1969, though not portion of the good Goodman assemblage exhibition, helium sketched retired a paradoxical skywriting sculpture that wasn’t executed until 40 years later, erstwhile finally, it was performed successful 2019 from a tiny airplane flying implicit Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. “Leave the onshore alone,” the ephemeral skywriting said successful puffs of wispy smoke. The aerial sentiment astir biology degradation beneath besides artfully invokes idiosyncratic quality mortality, erstwhile conscionable a flimsy intermission precedes the last word.

Leave the onshore — alone. Nauman’s skywriting drifted for a infinitesimal successful the late-summer breeze, past disappeared.

Marian Goodman Gallery, 1120 Seward St., Hollywood, (310) 312-8294, done April 26. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.mariangoodman.com

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