CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/21/2018

Bruce Nauman, all thumbs

The hand is a conspicuous motif in Bruce Nauman's oeuvre, Julia Keller writes in Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts, published to accompany the career retrospective opening today at MoMA and MoMA PS1 in New York. "Whether in drawings, prints, photographs, casts or videos, Nauman repeatedly turns his hand into a focal point, examining it both as an artistic tool and as a metaphor for craft, sometimes within the same work. He breaks, however, with the traditional ideal of the artist as virtuoso: through simple gestures, and at times with a dash of humor, he points up the clumsiness of hands…" Featured image is All Thumbs (1996).