News / Bruce Nauman / Museum Exhibitions

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Ikonen
Was wir Menschen anbeten

October 19, 2019–March 1, 2020
Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany
www.kunsthalle-bremen.de

This exhibition, whose title translates to Icons: Worship and Adoration, presents a single masterpiece in each of the museum’s sixty galleries complemented by everyday icons—from consumer brands to icons of popular culture, offering an interpretation of the traditional notion of the icon in art juxtaposed with the proliferation of icons in everyday life. The presentation examines various aspects of spirituality, devotion, and adoration. Work by Francis Bacon, Andreas Gursky, Damien Hirst, Yves Klein, Jeff Koons, Bruce Nauman, and Andy Warhol is included.

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Objects of Wonder
From Pedestal to Interaction

October 12, 2019–March 1, 2020
ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark
www.aros.dk

Objects of Wonder features sculptural works from 1960 until the present. The exhibition, conceptualized in collaboration with Tate, London, showcases recent sensory or thought-provoking sculpture and experiments. The audience encounters a series of works that challenge the genre, where tactility, context, and light play a central role. Work by Damien Hirst, Bruce Nauman, and Rachel Whiteread is included.

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The Foundation of the Museum
MOCA’s Collection

May 19, 2019–January 20, 2020
Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles
www.moca.org

To mark the museum’s fortieth anniversary, this exhibition presents a selected topography of artworks that speak to the diversity of MOCA’s collecting over the past four decades. With special emphasis on works associated with the museum’s remarkable history of exhibitions, The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection shows the institution’s holdings as shaped by a changing landscape of developments in contemporary art and curatorial focus, as well by as the social and cultural backdrops that inform them. Work by Chris Burden, Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman, Albert Oehlen, Nancy Rubins, and Ed Ruscha is included.

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The Body Electric

March 30–July 21, 2019
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
walkerart.org

In an age dominated by digital technology, The Body Electric explores themes of the real and the virtual, the organic and the artificial, moving from world to screen and back again. This exhibition presents work by an international and intergenerational group of artists who examine ways that photographic, televisual, and digital media change our perceptions of the human body and everyday life. Work by Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik is included.

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West by Midwest

November 17, 2018–January 27, 2019
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
mcachicago.org

West by Midwest tells a story that illuminates the ways that contemporary art practices spread and develop by tracing the intersecting lives of artists who have migrated from the American Midwest to the West Coast since the mid-twentieth century. Lured by career opportunities, warmer weather, and the prospect of a better life promised by the postwar boom, those artists who were able to migrate attended art schools together, shared studios, exhibited work in the same galleries, collaborated on projects, engaged in activism, and dated one another. Work by Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman, Sterling Ruby, and Ed Ruscha is included.

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The Classical Now

March 2–April 28, 2018
King’s College, London
www.kcl.ac.uk

The Classical Now pairs the work of modern and contemporary artists with classical Greek and Roman antiquities. The exhibition traces the ways in which Greco-Roman art has captured and permeated modern imagination, while exploring the myriad continuities and contrasts between the ancient, modern, and contemporary, revealing the “classical” as a living and fluid tradition. Work by Michael Craig-Martin, Damien Hirst, Alex Israel, Yves Klein, Roy Lichtenstein, Henry Moore, Bruce Nauman, Pablo Picasso, and Rachel Whiteread is included.

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We Are Here

August 19, 2017–April 1, 2018
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
mcachicago.org

In honor of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s fiftieth anniversary, the museum presents We Are Here, a three-part exhibition drawn from its collection. I Am You gathers works that question how we relate to and shape our environments; You Are Here examines how the role of the viewer has changed over time; and We Are Everywhere showcases artists who borrow from popular culture. Work by Richard Artschwager, Francis Bacon, Chris Burden, Ellen Gallagher, Andreas Gursky, Michael Heizer, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Cindy Sherman, Rudolf Stingel, Andy Warhol, and Franz West is included.

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I Am a Problem

September 23, 2017–February 18, 2018
MMK 2, Frankfurt
mmk-frankfurt.de

A gloomy and at the same time provoking parallel world unfolds in the exhibition space, in which works from the Museum für Moderne Kunst’s collection become protagonists of a narrative and enter into a dialogue with one another. The starting point for the staging is a myth about Maria Callas (1923–1977). Work by Douglas Gordon, Bruce Nauman, Steven Parrino, Taryn Simon, and Andy Warhol is included.

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Moving Is in Every Direction
Environments, Installations, Narrative Spaces

March 17–September 24, 2017
Hamburger Bahnhof—Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin
www.smb.museum

This exhibition has a nonlinear narrative structure that traces the history of installation art from the 1960s to the present and features expansive walk-in environments, along with video and sound installations. Work by Urs Fischer and Bruce Nauman is included.

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Duet with Artist
Participation as an Artistic Principle

May 21–September 3, 2017
Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany
www.museum-morsbroich.de

The role of the audience in the creative process of a work of art is at the center of this exhibition. Different forms of participation are offered, following directional structures evoking critical thought processes or generating collaboration with others. Work by Davide Balula, Yves Klein, Bruce Nauman, and Franz West is included.

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Primary Structures
Masterworks of Minimal Art

February 22–August 13, 2017
MMK2, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
mmk-frankfurt.de

The Minimal art current emerged in the US in the early 1960s, its exponents striving in their works for objectiveness, logic, and industrial production without artistic signature. The exhibition investigates the international impact of the influential Minimal art movement from the ’60s to the present. This show includes works by Richard Artschwager, Walter De Maria, Bruce Nauman, Steven Parrino, and Richard Serra.

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The American Dream
Pop to the Present

March 9–June 18, 2017
British Museum, London
americandreamexhibition.org

This exhibition traces the past six decades of American history through prints of unprecedented scale and ambition. Starting with the explosion of Pop art in the 1960s, the show includes works by many of America’s most celebrated artists. Works by Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann are on view.

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The Beginning of Everything
Drawings from the Janie C. Lee, Louisa Stude Sarofim, and David Whitney Collections

February 24–June 18, 2017
The Menil Collection, Houston
www.menil.org

In anticipation of the October 2017 opening of the Menil Drawing Institute, the museum is exhibiting a selection of drawings spanning the mid-nineteenth to the late twentieth century. The show highlights promised gifts from the collections of Janie C. Lee and Louisa Stude Sarofim, as well as works from David Whitney’s 2005 bequest, which include those by Balthus, Georg Baselitz, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Anselm Kiefer, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Rachel Whiteread.

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The Great Graphic Boom

March 3–May 28, 2017
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo
www.nasjonalmuseet.no

This exhibition explores the intense interest in graphic art among many leading artists of the postwar art period. With works from twenty-five artists, including Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol, the show highlights the use of graphic media both as a refined form of expression and as an important phase in the artistic process. The exhibition has been organized with support from Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany.

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Human Interest
Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

April 2, 2016–April 2, 2017
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org

Human Interest offers new perspectives on one of art’s oldest genres. Drawn entirely from the museum’s holdings, the more than two hundred works in the exhibition show changing approaches to portraiture from the early 1900s until today. Bringing iconic works together with lesser-known examples and recent acquisitions in a range of mediums, the exhibition unfolds in eleven thematic sections. Work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning, Roe Ethridge, Duane Hanson, Mike Kelley, Sally Mann, Man Ray, Bruce Nauman, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, Rudolf Stingel, Andy Warhol, and Jonas Wood is included.