The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pinault Collection - Paris and Venice, have jointly acquired two important works by Bruce Nauman (American, born 1941), one of the most influential artists of his generation. These include the monumental video installation, Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, 2015/2016, consisting of seven large-scale video projections with sound, and Walks In Walks Out, 2015, a closely related work comprising a single-channel video with sound. Walks In Walks Out has recently been installed in Gallery 171 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and will remain on view through August.

Bruce Nauman has been widely acclaimed as a pioneer of performance art, durational practices, and time-based media. Emerging in the 1960s in the midst of Postminimalism and Conceptual Art, Nauman developed a radical approach to art making that has encompassed sculpture, sound, installation, film, and video. His work questions the very nature of what constitutes art and being an artist. It has also probed the possibilities and limitations of the performing body and explored the relationship between language and meaning, subject and object, viewer and participant.

Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, stated: “We are delighted to join forces with the Pinault Collection to acquire these two major works by Nauman. While the monumental Contrapposto Studies, I through VII demonstrates Nauman’s ability to orchestrate space, movement, and sound, the intimate Walks In Walks Out captures Nauman in the process of creation in his studio. These acquisitions underscore the Museum’s commitment to presenting the most significant art of our time. I am delighted that these works have found a home here and in Europe, as Nauman continues to exert a strong influence on a younger generation of artists throughout the world.”

François Pinault stated: “Thanks to this joint acquisition, a major work by one the greatest artists of our time will be presented to a large international audience in the United States and Europe. Furthermore, this acquisition underlines the importance of Bruce Nauman’s works within Pinault Collection and the quality of the relationships Pinault Collection has built with the most important museums in the world.”

Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, which was recently presented at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is among the largest and most ambitious works created by Nauman over the last two decades. It recalls Nauman’s seminal video work Walk with Contrapposto of 1968, in which the artist animates a pose originating in classical Greek sculpture that introduced dynamism to the representation of the human form. This recent work consists of seven large-scale video projections with sound in which the artist, walking in contrapposto, is rendered in both positive and negative, moving forwards and backwards. His body is at times digitally replicated, fragmented, and stacked in multiple horizontal strata.

Nauman’s single-channel video Walks In Walks Out, 2015, captures the artist in the process of making Contrapposto Studies, I through VII. He is seen walking into and out of the view of a camera as it projects a sequence from Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, onto his studio wall. Walking up to each image of his projected body seen on the wall, Nauman uses his own scale to establish the ideal dimensions of the video for public display. In its economic execution and seeming simplicity, the work conveys the visual relationship—and tension—between the artist and his projected image.

Carlos Basualdo, The Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, said: ”Bruce Nauman is one of the most profound and provocative artists working today. These two recent works together interrogate the ways in which our perception constructs—or distorts—our relation to reality. They also work on multiple levels, drawing both from art history and from Nauman’s own biography. They reflect Nauman’s unparalleled capacity to convey complex issues in his work with an exceptional economy of means.”

The acquisition of these two works enables the Philadelphia Museum of Art to more fully represent the most significant moments of Nauman’s career. In 2007, the Museum acquired Nauman’s iconic neon sign The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (Window or Wall Sign) that he produced in 1967. The Museum also holds seminal videos and films by Nauman, including: Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square (1967-68), Walk with Contrapposto (1968), and Wall-Floor Positions (1968). Contrapposto Studies, I through VII is the most ambitiously scaled work by Nauman to join the Museum’s collection, and Walks In Walks Out enables the Museum to present the artist’s recent work in multiple contexts.

Publication

In Spring 2018, the Philadelphia Museum of Art will publish Bruce Nauman: Contrapposto Studies, a volume celebrating the acquisitions and examining the significance of Contrapposto Studies, I through VII, Walks In Walks Out, and related works. It will include an interview with the artist by Carlos Basualdo; an essay by Erica F. Battle, The John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Associate Curator of Contemporary Art; and an essay by Caroline Bourgeois, Curator of the Pinault Collection. The Museum gratefully acknowledges Sperone Westwater for its support of the publication.