Sperone Westwater is pleased to present “Begin Again,” an exhibition of new sculptures, drawings and videos by Bruce Nauman, his fifteenth show at the gallery since his first in 1976. The gallery installation immerses the viewer within Nauman’s studio and practice, as he turns his attention back to more traditional media.

This body of work, created over the last two years, materializes from a return to a fundamental aspect of the artist’s practice: drawing. “I really like to draw, and I was pretty good at it at one point,” says Nauman. “I drew for two reasons: when I was making sculpture and installations, I drew to figure out how to go about the work and what it might be, and then I drew the finished work to help me understand what I’d made. Drawing was about the sculpture, and these drawings are, too.” Now, Nauman is drawing what he sees in his New Mexico studio. “I cleaned up a corner of the studio and started drawing what was on the wall. I had two foam foxes left from 1989, the year I made Animal Pyramid, so I put up some boxes and used the two foxes for a still life and drew them. I kept changing the configuration so I would have more ways to draw them.” The resulting silverpoint and goldpoint drawings reveal the artist’s efforts to connect eye to hand. Intimate in both scale and subject matter, they reflect his immediate surroundings—sculptural elements, tools, occasional visitors—and reference his personal history and memories as source material.

Upon entering the gallery, visitors encounter a provocative series of seventeen hanging animal sculptures, inspired by his drawing process. Primarily composed of polyurethane taxidermy forms and plaster casts, stacked and bound together with wire, Nauman incorporates other materials such as cardboard, scrap wood, steel, cast bronze heads and hammers that hang down and balance upon the floor. Nauman’s penchant for revisiting and reinterpreting earlier works is alive and well–in this case working from an object he initially encountered in a New Mexico taxidermy shop in 1988.

For Untitled (Turning, Swinging and Striking) Dedicated to Bruce Hamilton and Susanna Carlisle (2024), a new 3D video installed in the East Gallery, the artist again utilizes his actions within the studio as subject matter. Using a method devised by Hamilton and Carlisle to create stereoscopic video with two iPhones, Nauman circled and prodded his sculpture to make the head of a ballpeen hammer strike a cast bronze head on the floor below, like a bell. Upon donning the 3D glasses, viewers assume the place of the artist in his studio.

The exhibition will be accompanied by Bruce Nauman: Learning to Draw Again, a new 80-page catalogue focused on the drawings, with a preface by the artist and 45 reproductions.

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana in 1941, Bruce Nauman received his BS from the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1964) and his MFA from the University of California, Davis (1966). Since his first solo gallery show in 1966, Nauman has been the subject of numerous surveys and retrospectives at institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum (1972-73); Whitechapel Art Gallery, Kunsthalle Basel and Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1986-87); and Walker Art Center, Hirshhorn Museum, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Kunsthaus Zurich (1993-95). Other important solo exhibitions have been presented at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall (2004); the Berkeley Art Museum, Castello di Rivoli and the Menil Collection (2007-08); and Fondation Cartier (2015). “Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts,” a comprehensive retrospective, debuted at Schaulager, Basel (2018) and traveled to The Museum of Modern Art, New York and MoMA P.S.1 (2018-19). In 2020, Tate presented a survey that traveled to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2021); M Woods, Beijing (2022); and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2022-23). Recent solo exhibitions include Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana, Venice (2021-22); SITE Santa Fe, NM (2023); and Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2024). Nauman has received awards including the Wolf Foundation Prize in Arts (1993), the Wexner Prize (1994), the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999), the Praemium Imperiale (2004) and the Frederick Kiesler Prize (2014). Nauman represented the United States at the 2009 Venice Biennale; the pavilion was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Since his first exhibition at Sperone Westwater in 1976, Nauman has exhibited regularly at the gallery (1982, 1984, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1996, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2024).

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