Konrad Fischer Galerie and Okey Dokey Konrad Fischer are honored to present Bruce Nauman’s twenty-first exhibition with the gallery, and the first in New York, marking a historic continuity that began with his seminal first solo exhibition in Düsseldorf, Six Sound Problems for Konrad Fischer, in 1968.

When asked by his friend, the painter Eric Fischl, ‘How do you hold your pencil?’, Nauman explained: “I really hadn’t thought about it, and I asked my daughter to make a video over my right shoulder while I was making a silverpoint drawing. (…) That got me thinking: How do I work? How do I draw?”

Presenting a body of work that emerged from this deceptively simple question, Nauman and his assistant Ellen Babcock have made over sixty slow-motion, 3D videos of the artist drawing still-lifes, self-portraits, and of scenes of thumb wrestling.

In the middle gallery, a group 27 videos changes daily, allowing a viewer on repeated visits a chance to experience the exhibition afresh—an approach that is reminiscent of Nauman’s first exhibition at Konrad Fischer, when different sound loops were played over six consecutive days.

Many of the videos show Nauman looking at an object, then closing his eyes to make a “blind" drawing in silverpoint or gold point. The duration of each video varies and is based on the length of him completing a drawing. Drawing on paper ranging from white, pink, to light green/grey to black, one might see him make a self-portrait, draw a still life made of drinking glasses and cups suspended from wires, or see a drawing made by his assistant, Ellen, who holds the pen in his place while Nauman handles the 3D camera rig.

In the furthest room, a single work comprising fifteen videos is set to loop, creating a dynamic where relationships between works continually shift, guided by parameters created by the artist. All works are in slow motion, including the audio, which produces an ambient sound to fill the exhibition space.

Throughout the exhibition, “blind drawings” that one may encounter in the videos are exhibited for the first time. Nauman has explained that these drawings were also born of an exercise prized by his late friend, the curator Kasper König: to draw a pig with your eyes closed without lifting the pencil from the paper. Closing his eyes, he found he could resolve the problem, and the experience sparked the idea of blind drawings. As Nauman observed, when you draw with your eyes closed, there are no mistakes to be made.

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All images: © Bruce Nauman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Courtesy Konrad Fischer Galerie