Projects — VICTOR WANG

BRUCE NAUMAN: OK OK OK

Curated at M WOODS by Victor Wang, Artistic Director and Chief Curator, M WOODS.
Curated at Tate Modern by Andrea Lissoni, former Senior Curator, International Art (Film), Tate Modern; Nicholas Serota, former Director, Tate, and Katy Wan, Assistant Curator, International Art, Tate Modern.
M WOODS Hutong
11 March 2022 – 11 June 2022

In collaboration with Tate Modern, London and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, M WOODS Museum presents China’s first and most comprehensive overview of the work of the American artist Bruce Nauman. The exhibition features work from fifty years of Nauman’s career, and departs from previous surveys in its experiential approach to display and its focus on Nauman’s interest in performance art, neon, sound, and the moving image.

Image, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Bringing together key works that call attention to Nauman’s highly innovative approach to making art, the exhibition will also include a special presentation of Nauman’s 2004 Tate Turbine Hall commission Raw Materials, which functions as a sound retrospective, bringing together 22 audio excerpts from works spanning a nearly forty year period.

“[If] I was an artist and I was in the studio”, Nauman explained, “then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.” The exhibition will also present important works from museum collections internationally that explore Nauman’s preoccupation with the theme of the artist’s studio. MAPPING THE STUDIO II with color shift, flip, flop & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage) (2001) features seven large video projections presenting different views of Nauman’s studio in New Mexico, filmed at night with an infrared camera over a period of several weeks. While MAPPING THE STUDIO II focuses on the artist’s studio, video installations like Clown Torture (1987) and Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning) (1992) challenge the conventional gallery experience, confronting and at times directly engaging the viewer in the actions taking place.

Reflecting both Nauman’s use of the body as a primary artistic medium and the increasing use of film (and later, video) as an important tool for the documentation of performance art in the 1960s, Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square (1967–8), Walk with Contrapposto (1968), and Bouncing in the Corner, No. 1 (1968) are among Nauman’s earliest works, made following his graduate studies in Fine Art at the University of California, Davis.

The exhibition also features Nauman’s influential neon sculptures that explore the ways in which art can occupy a space between advertising and consumerism, and the potential of language and light. Works such as The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) (1967) were inspired by a commercial beer sign which hung in his San Francisco studio, a former grocery store. The True Artistis also the first of Nauman’s neons to incorporate text. Nauman explained: “I had an idea that I could make art that would kind of disappear – an art that was supposed to not quite look like art. You wouldn’t really notice it until you paid attention.”

Two important works, Going Around the Corner Piece with Live and Taped Monitors (1970) and Changing Light Corridor with Rooms (1971), both reveal the ways in which, for Nauman, behavioural attitudes and audience participation are related to psychological states and spaces. When encounteringGoing Around the Corner Piece, the visitor is required to be both a viewer and a participant, as a CCTV camera records the audience as they activate the work. Built a year later in his Los Angeles studio, Changing Light Corridor with Rooms consists of a long-walled corridor with two side rooms (one rectangular, the other triangular) intermittently flashing lights as the viewer walks through the constricted space. A number of these corridors evidence the artist’s concern with the effect physical spaces can have on people and their behaviour, especially the way that constructed environments can create feelings of unease and change an individual’s mood.

Exhibition organised by Tate Modern, London and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, in collaboration with M WOODS, Beijing and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan.

Image, ‘ Changing Light Corridor with Rooms’, (1971), at “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘MAPPING THE STUDIO II with color shift, flip, flop, & flip/flop (Fat Chance John Cage)’, 2001, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘One Hundred Live and Die’, 1984, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Images, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Clown Torture’, 1987, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign)’, 1967, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘ Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning)’, 1992, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning), 1992, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘ Going Around the Corner Piece with Live and Taped Monitors’, 1970, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square, 1967-1968, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Falls, Pratfalls and Sleights of Hand (Clean Version)’, 1993, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Run from Fear, Fun from Rear’, 1972, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Good Boy Bad Boy’, 1985, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Human Nature / Knows Doesn't Know’, 1983/1986, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘Walks In Walks Out’, 2015, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

Image, ‘ Washing Hands Normal’, 1996, “BRUCE NAUMAN : OK OK OK”, Installation View, 2022, at M WOODS Hutong, Beijing. © MWOODS © Bruce Nauman by SIAE 2021

ABOUT BRUCE NAUMAN

Bruce Nauman was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1941. He studied mathematics, physics and art at the University of Wisconsin before graduating with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Davis in 1966, with extracurricular activities including classical music and philosophy.

Nauman’s first solo exhibition was held at Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1966 and was followed in the same year by his inclusion in Eccentric Abstraction - a group exhibition at New York’s Fischbach Gallery which heralded a new era of post-minimalism. Sperone Westwater, New York, is Nauman’s primary representation, where he has shown since 1976.

In 1972, at the age of thirty-one Nauman had his first retrospective exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, followed by venues in Europe. In 1994 a large retrospective of his work was organised by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, with a subsequent international tour. A further retrospective, Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts was presented at the Schaulager, Basel, and The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1, New York in 2018–19.

Major museum shows dedicated to Nauman’s work have included: Bruce Nauman, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo 1981; Bruce Nauman: Neons, Baltimore Museum of Art 1982-3; Bruce Nauman Drawings 1965–1986, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel 1986; Bruce Nauman, Kunsthalle Basel and Whitechapel Gallery, London 1986–7; Bruce Nauman: Image/Text, 1966–1996, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and Hayward Gallery, London 1997–8. He has participated in five editions of the major quinquennial exhibition Documenta (1968, 1972, 1977, 1982 and 1992) and has presented work in the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale at least six times.

Nauman was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale twice, in 1999 and 2009, the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale Award for sculpture in 2004, the Wolf Prize for Arts-Sculpture in 1993, the Wexner Prize in 1994 and the Max Beckmann Prize in 1990.

With special thanks to Sperone Westwater, New York, Nauman’s primary representation, where he has shown since 1976.

Exhibition Credit at M WOODS

Curated at M WOODS by Victor Wang, Artistic Director and Head Curator
Curatorial Assistance by Deng Yingying, Qi Yuanlin, Chen Lu
Exhibition Design Li Xindi, Yang Zhi, Victor Wang
Exhibition Co-ordination Zhang Yuhan
Exhibition Communication Chen Lu, Zhou Tingyun, Lin Yuyang
Registrar Liang Tian, Zhang Wenwen

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Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China

Works from the British Museum Collection by:
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, Polidoro da Caravaggio, Lorenzo di Credi, and more.

In dialogue with artists:
Hao Liang (郝量), Hu Xiaoyuan (胡晓媛), Jin Shangyi (靳尚谊), Kan Xuan (阚萱), Liu Xiaodong (刘小东), Liu Ye (刘野), Qiu Xiaofei (仇晓飞), Xie Nanxing (谢南星), Yu Ji (于吉), Zeng Fanzhi (曾梵志)

Curated by Victor Wang, Artistic Director and Chief Curator, M WOODS, and Sarah Vowles, Smirnov Family Curator of Italian & French Prints & Drawings, British Museum.
M WOODS Hutong
3 September 2021 – 20 February 2022

The presentation of this exhibition is a collaboration between the British Museum and M WOODS Museum

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS, Beijing, 2021

M WOODS and the British Museum (U.K.) are proud to present 'Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China’, the first collaborative exhibition between the British Museum and an independent, not-for-profit art museum in China.

The key focus of the exhibition is to enlighten visitors about Italian Renaissance drawings, and it will include examples by many of the great Renaissance artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael, taken from the historic collections of the British Museum. For the first time in their history, these works will be placed in dialogue with contemporary art from China to highlight the important trans-temporal relationships between the Western Renaissance and China.

Taddeo Zuccaro (1529–1566),The cultivation of silkworms
1564–66. Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, over black chalk. This is a preparatory drawing for a fresco at Palazzo Farnese, Caprarola. The finished fresco is in the former dressing room of Cardinal Farnese, which was decorated with scenes showing the textile industry. Here, Taddeo shows farmers cutting leaves from a mulberry tree to feed to their silkworms. Developed from processes established in China, this produced the finest and most sought-after silk, which was a much admired luxury product in Renaissance Italy.

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021

M WOODS’ Artistic Director and Chief Curator, Victor Wang, has worked closely with the British Museum’s Smirnov Family Curator of Italian & French Prints & Drawings, Sarah Vowles, to consider the possibility of a Renaissance beyond Europe, and introduce a cross-cultural global perspective on these historical works on paper.

‘Renaissance’ is the French translation of the Italian word rinascimento, meaning ‘rebirth’. It refers to the cultural and intellectual flowering that took place in Italy in the 15th century before it spread north of the Alps across Europe[1]. However, the Italian Renaissance was not only fascinated by Greco-Roman antiquity, it was also a larger exchange of ideas, techniques, and perspectives that would go on to influence other parts of the world.

From left to right in image, Xie Nanxing, ‘Spice No. 7’, 2017, Gentile Bellini (1429–1507), ‘A Turkish woman’, 1480, installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021

From an expanded historiographical perspective on both the period and the ideas that were developed, several important relationships can be revealed between the traditional European Renaissance and the modernization of China, as both an intellectual and cultural project. Local and international scholars have discussed the influence of the Renaissance on modern China in terms of the country’s nation-building and reformational efforts, providing a framework for understanding the modernising forces of the early 20th century, a period that concluded the country’s millennium-old imperial rule, as well as the country’s cultural continuity with the Song (960–1279) and Ming Dynasties (1368-1644), which denote, amongst other things, canonical periods of high cultural tradition that are important periods of reference in the formation of China’s modern identity. Alternatively, by situating these Italian Renaissance works within a contemporary art framework, we allow for a re-orientation and re-appraisal of these historical drawings from a different cultural context and from a contemporary non-European perspective.

Image left: Zeng Fanzhi, Untitled, 2020, Drawing
Image centre, Zeng Fanzhi, Untitled, 2020, Drawing
Image right: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564), 1519–1523, Black chalk

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Some of the themes that characterise Renaissance art are brought together in the selection of drawings, which date from between 1470 and 1580 and represent artists working across the Italian peninsula. The works in the exhibition have been divided into six thematic sections: The Human Figure, Movement, Light, Costume and Drapery, The Natural World, and Storytelling. The exhibition then explores how artists both in the Renaissance and in China brought life, form, and dynamism to their compositions through the study of these themes such as movement, light and shade, and costume. This presentation will bring together the artist’s understanding of the earlier themes into a conversation, while opening up a new space that also considers the parallels and tangents between these perspectives and histories. The work of influential Chinese scholars such as Jiang Fangzheng, Hu Shi, Liang Sicheng and Fu Lei, who were key figures in these cultural movements and national reforms, will be represented in specific archival materials, while contextual information on the importance of drawing as a conceptual and explorative tool for Renaissance artists will also be on display.

Image left: Installation view, Kan Xuan, ‘A Monk’, 2005, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Image right: Three head studies, Attributed to Giovanni Bellini (about 1430–1516), Three head studies. 1500–16. Black chalk, the sheet extensively made up along the lower margin

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Left image: Yu Ji, Flesh in Stone-Ghost #2, 2018

Right image: Polidoro da Caravaggio (about 1500–1536/37),Two studies of a man with arm raised, About 1530–40. Black chalk

Italian Renaissance art was dominated by the desire to accurately represent the human form. The aim was to engage the viewer in the narrative shown in the painting, and to do this figures had to be naturalistic and convincing.

To help artists develop their knowledge of the human body, workshop practice increasingly focused on drawing the male nude from life. As more ancient sculptures were discovered, artists also began to draw from the original statues or from plaster casts, trying to emulate the muscular power of classical art. Alongside these drawings of the whole body, artists would make detailed head studies of friends and colleagues of various ages, which could later be used to represent saints, mythological characters or classical heroes in finished works. More generic character types could sometimes be exaggerated into caricature, as can be seen in the extravagant heads imagined by Leonardo da Vinci. Here a deep understanding of the human form provides a springboard to a more creative exploration of personality and character.

Left image: Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, il Sodoma (1477–1549)
Red and white chalk, over black chalk, on light brown paper

Right image: Liu Xiaodong 2 Diary of an Empty City 2
2015. Oil on canvas

Installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS Hutong, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Image left: (foreground in image), Hu Xiaoyun, Spheres of Doubt III, 2021,
Image Right, Francesco Salviati (1510–1563), Drapery study for a seated woman,About 1556, installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

From left to right in image, (left) Michelangelo (1475–1564), The Annunciation
1542–46 , Gentile Bellini (1429–1507), (right) Liu Ye, Book Painting No.7, 2015,
installation view, Italian Renaissance Drawings: A Dialogue with China, M WOODS, courtesy M WOODS HUTONG, Beijing, 2021.

Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum said, “The British Museum is delighted to be working with M WOODS on this exciting collaborative project. The Museum is absolutely committed to sharing the collection as widely as possible with museums across the world. Our exhibition partnerships in China have always proved very popular with audiences and I will be fascinated to see how audiences in Beijing respond to the show.”

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