Green Horses
1988

Working outside the parameters of traditional sculpture, Bruce Nauman challenges and compels the viewer to consider the ways in which a process or activity can alter, or even become, a work of art. Green Horses revisits Nauman’s early work of the 1960s, a period in which he began to work with film and video and often used himself as a subject. Here, his arrangement evokes an artist’s studio: a chair is placed facing a large projection screen, while two TV monitors are located on carts placed against an adjacent wall, perhaps in reference to Nauman’s editing process. All of the three screens play the same video of Nauman putting an unbroken horse through a series of paces, but the film is intermittently inverted, conveying the idea that the horse is at times riding the man. The empty chair, a common Nauman motif, serves as a surrogate for the artist himself. Void of Nauman’s physical presence, it invites the viewer to take his place, granting temporary insight into the artist’s gaze and creative process.