Nauman is an unbelievably talented American artist who specializes in light instillations and sculptures. Most known for his beautiful and intriguing neon works, films, videotapes, performances, installations, sculpted body parts and word plays at first seemed frustratingly art-less. His was an art of exploration: he used himself, his person and his witty brand of inquiry to examine the parameters of art and the role of the artist. This questioning elicited strong emotional, physical and intellectual responses, and it often resulted in objects of formal beauty.
Interested in new forms of music and literature, Nauman used the evocative power of language (in drawings, video scripts and neon installations), dismantling linguistic structure, creating puns and oxymorons, and linking contradictory words in alliterative sequences, as in Violins Violence Silence. Using flashing neon signs, he stripped words and, later, actions of their conventional meanings.
Bio via The MOMA
