Bruce Nauman: ARTIST ROOMS, Tate Modern

American conceptual artist Bruce Nauman makes work that defies categorisation. He is a sculptor, a photographer, and a printmaker, who works with neon, across videos and performance art.

Nauman's art breaks down language to a curious poetic and artistic construction and is laced with unease. Perhaps it's best summed up by the man himself, who once described art as 'like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. Or better yet, like getting hit in the back of the neck. You never see it coming.'

Nauman is the current artist presented in Tate Modern's ARTIST ROOMS gallery, on the fourth floor of the Blavatnik building, taking over from the late, great French-American conceptualist Louise Bourgeois.

The free exhibition presents a selection of works spanning Nauman’s career. These include his neon sculptures of the 1970s and 1980s: VIOLINS VIOLENCE SILENCE, La Brea/Art Tips/Rat Spit/Tar Pits, and Double Poke in the Eye II. These wordy, light-emitting works deal with life's big questions, all bearing the artist's trademark outlook.



The exhibition also includes the large sculptural installation Enforced Perspective: Allegory and Symbolism. Made up of steel rhomboids in a geometric design, creating the illusion of subtle shifts in the gallery floor as the viewer moves about them.

You will also have the chance to see his enigmatic sound installation, Raw Material with Continuous Shift – MMMM (above), in Tate's Turbine Hall throughout the summer. Raw Material, his acclaimed 2004 Unilever Series Commission, is a landmark work that lures and unnerves the viewer with Nauman’s trademark rhythm and intensity.