Bruce Nauman's Hand Sanitizing Station

Camera: Tara Nelson


At one part of the body of my work I am interested in resampling well known pieces of art. This way I am questioning the role of the Artist and Artwork in our society. I am trying to bring exclusive works of art closer to the public. I am looking for their other possible functions as common things in our daily life without the Aura of Art. For me, it is interesting observe them, how they work in the everyday situations. In this particular case I am basically trying to place the Duchamp's Pissoir back to his previous environment.

Bruce Nauman in his famous work The Fountain is also dealing with the role of Artwork and Artist. Jasmine Moorhead in 1995 wrote about his work in the Yale Herald:

Nauman, though, seems to have worked through Duchamp quite successfully. At the time, he had never really seen Duchamp's work, although he admitted "the information was just sort of in the air." The lineage is complex, but Nauman's approach is so fresh that he can hardly be called derivative. One of Nauman's "Eleven Color Photographs" (1966-1967/70) is "Self-Portrait as a Fountain," showing Nauman spewing water out of his mouth. This piece, consciously or not, relates to Duchamp's "Fountain" of 1917, a urinal signed and turned upside down. In Nauman's piece, the artist becomes not only the author but the object, the art. Nauman has taken the loaded image of Duchamp, who, close to 50 years before, had chosen and subverted such a loaded image as a man's urinal, and subverted him. Nauman becomes the active object, one that still spews water.

I am resampling this artwork into public space. I am placing his Fountain and also the status of artist to different situation. Out of the sterile White Cube gallery space. Bruce Nauman used as material for his performance clean water. I am turning his artwork into especially today often used Hand Sanitizing Station. Because of this concept I am using Hand Sanitizing Liquid instead of clean water. This way I am not only offering his artwork for the use of public, but also I am making comment about the recent paranoia of infection and influenza. Besides the wide range of vaccines and antibiotics we trying to protect ourselves also by exaggerated usage of  hand sanitizing liquids. This recent phenomena, became widely used and more personal. Because of the fear we invited them to our private sphere, we invite them to touch our bodies.

This performance will continue in the future at more places in more cities. Always in the spaces where already is, or where I believe a hand sanitizer can be placed.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Matej Vakula
• Bruce Nauman
• Art
• Public
• Site Specific
• H1N1
• Space
• Influenza
• Hand
• Sanitizer
• Liquid
• Kendall
• Cambridge
• Pissoir
• Duchamp
• Slovak

[zappinomarturano]

Why didn't you do any other videos? maybe with other works of other artists also!