05/10/22 - One of the parallel exhibitions to the 59th Venice Biennale takes place at the magnificent space of Punta Della Dogana. There Bruce Nauman (USA, 1941) presents Contrapposto Studies: a series of videos with which the artist refers to the pose in which bodies were depicted in the paintings and sculptures of Western culture. This particular way of standing emerges in the 5th Century BC to become a dominant characteristic of the subjects produced during the Renaissance and  it consists of resting the weight of the body on one of the legs, with a slight twist that contrasts with the rigidity of the poses executed during the Archaic Greek period. Nauman assumes the position and films himself, provoking in us a feeling of displeasure or rejection. "I want my art to be vehement and aggressive because that forces people to pay attention," he explains. So, he disorients us, destabilizes us and, even more, disturbs us. Such is the soul of this artist who never fails to demonstrate opposites: truth/lie, life/death, pleasure/pain, and for this he uses his own body to work with.

For these Contrapposto Studies he films himself in his studio dressed wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. With this costume, he begins to walk in a straight line, with his hands on his head, trying to imitate and maintain the pose we have been talking about. In another video he fragments the image, which is even more provocative since the contrast with the classical ideal is even greater. His tired body, somewhat worn by the years, misaligned and with an absurd sway, shows us how the human being changes with age (remember that he is nearly 70). Nauman is shown from the front, in profile and from the back simultaneously, as if questioning us about how natural the contrapposto is: this canonical image associated with youth and vigor that we have seen hundreds of times and that defined the person represented as a special and supreme being. 

Contrapposto Studies, I Through VII, by Bruce Nauman (2015-2016)

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