When I visited the Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts exhibit, the piece Clown Torture really stuck out to me and its images proceeded to haunt me and my conversations for at least a few days. Upon entering a curtained room, I was greeted with four screens and two projections on either side of the walls depicting a clown being tortured by a seemingly invisible source. The clown is seen in various positions such as flailing on the floor while yelling “No, No, No, No!”, a clown holding what seems to be a broom and calling for help, and my favorite and probably strangest video Clown taking a shit playing simultaneously for one hour on loop. This piece challenges the viewer in many ways because the clown’s pleas, cries for help and struggles with constipation make us feel uncomfortable for what seems to be something we were not supposed to see (as implied by the curtains, dark room and depicted scenes), feeling useless to help the clown, and feeling overwhelmed by the imagery of a clown suffering in many places and orientations all at once. The simultaneous struggle of this clown also makes the viewer question if the clown is the one being tortured or if they are the ones being tortured. This ambiguity also allows the piece to interpreted as a simulation of the plight of millions of human beings all over the world viewed through technology. As humans, we feel compassion for other humans that are suffering but since the television screen keeps us from directly helping others, we are left feeling powerless while watching the news unfold tragedy after tragedy. Nauman seems to be telling us that we can’t solve all the problems in the world and that just like the videos and the images of the clown, problems will constantly be multiplying, come in many shapes in sizes and constantly loop for the rest of our lives.
I find this part of the exhibit slightly creepy and it makes me wonder what exactly was going on in Bruce Nauman’s mind while creating these videos. Clowns in general bring discomfort to a lot of people, so he must have known what kind of reaction to expect from this part of the exhibit. Personally, I think your analysis of the message conveyed through the suffering clown makes a lot of sense. It’s depressing, but you are right in saying that all the problems in the world can’t be solved. It’s really interesting that Nauman could depict this in an artistic way.
This is a very insightful post. The exhibit was definitely making a bold and loud statement, and the interpretation you have presented seems accurately painful. I think the idea that he chose a clown as the agent for this message has significance. Clowns in my opinion are stupid like light up toys and glitter and sugary candy with no taste. All these things are things which are striking in appearance, weird, stimulating, etc but have no honesty and substance to back them up. Perhaps Bruce Nauman is also saying that in order to overcome our own invisible, secretive tortures we must shed this empty facade and build ourselves up to something that is more than a shallow illusion, to something thats witty as opposed to funny by appearing ridiculous.
This exhibit also caught my attention as it creeped me out and made me question what Nauman was actually trying to show his audience. The atmosphere was very intense to me as I had to witness a clown pleading for help. I completely agree with ur statement of it being human nature to empathize with someone that is going through a tough time but it was even harder to deal with knowing we could not do anything. I believe the purpose behind this piece was to demonstrate that sometimes struggle is apart of life and the only way to come out stronger is by going through with it.