‘Here, I a.m.’ by Jone San Martin has a lot of this gesture. The videos speak for themselves. They force us to discover the pleasant possibilities of limitations, of space and of time. The body becomes not just the means but the message.
The True Artist
They say that when Bruce Nauman finished his studies as an artist in the late-60s, he was hit with the question ‘Now what?’. What does it mean to be an artist when you're alone in the studio. Years later, Nauman said the following in an interview: ‘If I was an artist and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art. At this point art became more of an activity and less of a product.’ His profane and simple answer raises two important points: on one hand, it arises from the premise that everything that an artist does is art; and on the other, it questions the value of art as a product and turns it into an act. This division reveals the divide between object art and process art; the difference between the imprint and its gesture.
During this period, Nauman arranged a neon sign in his studio so that it was facing the street. The words, written in a spiral, read: ‘The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths’. This phrase, readable from the street, sought not to pronounce but to give meaning to the artistic practice and to provide tools for the artist, alone in their studio for long periods of time. The title statement of this poetic spiral is neither funny nor deadly serious, and the contradictions it expresses generate an ambiguity which is both playful and profound: ‘seriousness without meaning or lack of deep meaning’. Question and answer come about at the same time. The hardest thing for Nauman was the phrase in itself, like when you say something out loud to see if you believe it. Once written, he could see that the statement was, on the one hand, a totally ridiculous idea, and on the other, something that he believed in. It is true and not true at the same time. The response depends on the interpretation.
Nauman's work is clearly influenced by the works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Samuel Beckett. It encourages the duplicity of language and the intrinsically comic nature of repetition. As a result, during those years that Nauman spent much time alone in his study he made a series of videos of himself investigating the relationship of the body with space – the studio as a white cube, and the body as the material from which to carve the passage of time. In several videos we see Nauman repeatedly letting himself fall over in a corner of the studio and from different angles. This simple movement is repeated for hours. In ‘Dance or Walk on the Perimeter of a Square’, Nauman studies the possibilities offered him by a square on the ground. Limitations are places requiring mandatory compliance and are simultaneously spaces filled with possibility. In ‘Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk)’ and ‘Revolving Upside Down’, that square is the entire studio. With the camera always fixed, sometimes turned sideways, Nauman – like the sculptor he is – sculpts the possibilities of the limitations that come from being in the space for long periods of time.
When we spend time, a lot of time, in a space, where the only thing we have is our body and time, both inevitably enter into a direct relationship. Being and time. Even if we don’t really know what we’re doing, the questions and the answers arise on their own and at the same time. Nauman asks himself: ‘How am I going to know what I think until I listen to myself?’ It is in darkness that we always find the most beautiful thoughts. The act of talking out loud is that which forces us to listen to ourselves. This gesture gives us a little distance from the weight of reality. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.
The video series ‘Here, I a.m.’ by Jone San Martin has a lot of this gesture. The videos speak for themselves. They force us to discover the pleasant possibilities of limitations, of space and of time. The body becomes not just the means but the message. Each of the spaces in our home, like that intimate and protective space, are now the white elephant that accompanies all of us from our homes.
Mikel R. Nieto, Barcelona, April 4th 202.
