"You can watch for a while, leave and go have lunch
or come back in a week, and it's just going on. And I really
liked that idea of the thing just being there. The idea
being there so that it became almost like an object that
was there, that you could go back and visit whenever you
wanted to."
"...Part of the enjoyment I take in it is finding the
most efficient way to do it, which doesn't mean the corrections
aren't made. I like to have a feeling of the whole task
before I start, even if it changes."
"If you're an amateur artist, you can get it sometimes
and not other times and you can't tell and you can't always
do it over again. And the part about being a professional
artist is that you can tell and you can do it over again,
even if you can't say how you got there exactly. You've
done it enough and you know how to get there."
You've made a number of works
on video that have a built-in continuous loop. Like the video
work from 1967 "The Artist is an Amazing Luminous Fountain"
- the text, spoken and on screen, seems to repeat endlessly.
This is a curious use of video, especially when compared to
the way that most things seen on television are narrative
driven.
NAUMAN:
When I was making that piece
originally and then thinking about it later, people, a lot
of people, were thinking about how to structure time. John
Cage was making different kinds of ways of making music and
Merce [Cunningham] was structuring dance in different kinds
of ways. And then [Andy] Warhol was making films that went
on for a long period of time. And Steve Reich and La Monte
Young were making music that was structured in a very different
way. So it was interesting for me to have a lot of ways to
think about things. And one of the things I liked about some
of those people was that they thought of their works as just
ongoing. And so you could come and go and the work was there.
And so there wasn't a specific duration, so where this thing
can just repeat and repeat and repeat, and you don't have
to sit and watch the whole thing. You can watch for a while,
leave and go have lunch or come back in a week, and it's just
going on. And I really liked that idea of the thing just being
there. The idea being there so that it became almost like
an object that was there, that you could go back and visit
whenever you wanted to.
ART:21:
The video "Setting a Good Corner"
seems to have a similar sense of duration, of something just
being there and continuing along its own logic.
NAUMAN:
This is a completely different
situation where, again, even though this is a new work, or
a newish work, it comes from some thoughts about earlier work
where you could control the length of the film or video tape
or activity by having a specific job. You began when the job
started, and when the job was over, the film was over. And
that became a way of structuring it without having to think
about it, other than deciding what the job was that you were
going to call the work.
ART:21:
What was the specific job in
"Setting a Good Corner?"
NAUMAN:
In this case we're building a
corner to stretch a fence and hang a gate. It had a real purpose
in the ranch here. I needed to do this. But at the same time,
it made a beautiful structure, and it also was one of these
things, well, here's the job and....
ART:21:
Is this where the text at the
beginning and at the end of the video come in? The text at
the beginning seems to describe what your activity is while
the text at the end is more of a criticism of the project,
of how well you made the corner.
NAUMAN:
My partner - Bill Riggins at
the end of tape - I showed him the tape, and he said, "Boy
you're going to get a lot of criticism on that because people
have a lot of different ways of doing those things." And so
I put down some of the things that he said, about keeping
your tools sharpened and not letting them lie on the ground
where they get hurt or get abused and dirty and can't find
them. And some thoughts about how his father used to do things.
How these things - if you grow up with them, you learn them
in one way.
ART:21:
Was it the activity that you
thought would make a good video, or was it the way in which
you framed the shot or the colors, that sort of thing?
NAUMAN:
Well, I don't know, and I wasn't
sure when I finished it if anybody would take it seriously.
It turned out to be kind of interesting to watch. I gave a
certain amount of thought to how I set up the shot and then
after that.... That's not an uncommon way for artists to proceed.
And then what makes the work interesting is if you choose
the right questions. Then, as you proceed, the answers are
what's interesting. If you choose the wrong questions and
you proceed, you still get a result, but it's not interesting.
And so that's in there. I think I learned some of that from
Sol LeWitt who does a lot of that. He builds a structure that
you have to work with, and the work could come out different
every time. But if you follow the structure, it's interesting,
sometimes beautiful and sometimes just interesting.
ART:21:
How you determine the right
questions in order to proceed?
NAUMAN:
Well, that's the art part and
that's what you don't know. That's the hard part. And sometimes
the question that you pose or the project that you start yourself
turns into something else, you know, but at least it gets
you started. And sometimes you finish and you look at it and
say "I got a bad result, I don't like what came out here."
And so you have to start over, or change it somehow. We were
having dinner with the Tuttles one time, Richard and Mamie.
And I had said that about Sol [LeWitt], that he was interested
in finding these questions and setting them up and seeing
what happened. And Richard said, "Well, that's the difference
between us, because I already know the answers." (LAUGHS)
And so I was driving home with Susan [Rothenberg] and I thought,"You
know, I forgot to ask him what they were." (LAUGHS) I was
just so amazed.
ART:21:
So when you were making the fence,
even though you were filming it you were mainly interested
in doing the task well?
NAUMAN:
Yeah. I mean if the fence is
going to last it has to be done well. And so you want to do
a good job. Other cowboys and ranchers are going to come around
and they'll see it and they'll say, "Well, that...that's a
good one." Or, "That's not a good one." It's when you go to
work at somebody else's place and the gates all work, or you
have to get out of the truck, or off your horse, and drag
them around and make a lot of extra work for yourself because
nobody wants to spend the time to fix them up and make them
work better. I have a lot of other things to do, so if I'm
going to do it, I'd like to get it right so that when I have
to use it, it's just there and it's useful and useable and
I'm not wasting time with a lot of extra baling wire and stuff,
patching it every once in a while.
ART:21:
Is there a meditative aspect
to this kind of hard work?
NAUMAN:
You have to adjust yourself to
it because it's hard work. And when I was digging that hole,
the ground was extremely dry. The ground was very hard, like
chipping limestone almost, you know? And so you adjust yourself
to the task and if you go out there and say, "Boy I just hate
doing this and I got to get it done," you're probably not
going to do a good job. And you might just forget, not even
bother. But if you can find that spot - I suppose it's like
running - I used to be a swimmer and swim laps, and you just
have to be there with what you're doing. Your mind could actually
go a lot of other places, but your body has to be there with
what you're doing. It's a good discipline. In the studio,
I don't do a lot of work that requires repetitive activity.
I spend a lot of time looking and thinking and then try to
find the most efficient way to get what I want, whether it's
making a drawing or a sculpture, or casting
plaster or whatever. But part of the enjoyment I take in it
is finding the most efficient way to do it, which doesn't
mean the corrections aren't made. I like to have a feeling
of the whole task before I start, even if it changes.
ART:21:
Is there anything you'd want
a viewer to take away from this work?
NAUMAN:
It's probably the part that I
can't say. It's the part that makes it art and not a "how
to do it" tape. If you're an amateur artist, you can get it
sometimes and not other times and you can't tell and you can't
always do it over again. And the part about being a professional
artist is that you can tell and you can do it over again,
even if you can't say how you got there exactly. You've done
it enough and you know how to get there. And I don't have
any specific steps to take because I don't start the same
way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and
you can leave it alone. You could go on and maybe make some
changes, they could ruin it and they aren't going to necessarily
make it better. They're just going to be different. And so
that's what keeps me in the studio, the not knowing part and
always being surprised.
