Bruce Nauman: Mindfuck

Bruce Nauman (born 1941) emerged in the late 1960s Los Angeles art scene, as part of a generation of artists who dramatically expanded the possibilities of sculpture and performance. His emergence also coincided with the ascent of gestalt psychology, behaviorism and philosophers following in the wake of Wittgenstein’s philosophies of language. Nauman’s work is thus deeply literate and steeped in the history of psychology--particularly Freud’s work on puns and slips of the tongue, in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, work that Nauman has explored in numerous language pieces using oxymorons, puns and Spoonerisms. Bruce Nauman: Mindfuck is the first publication to look at this celebrated artist’s work in performance, drawing, video, printmaking and neon installation, in the light of its relationship to psychology.