Bruce Nauman's eclectic style draws students to Cleveland

This weekend, the Cleveland Center for Art is presents "Double Poke in the eye: Bruce Nauman and Related Topics," a two day symposium to accompany the retrospective exhibition that is currently running there entitled "Bruce Nauman: 1985-1996, Drawings, Prints and Related Works." In an effort to engage students with the larger art community and not let this opportunity go to waste, two large buses paid for by the Allen Johnson fund will transport various arts classes to the symposium on Saturday for what will be an all day affair.

Among the classes attending will be the Digital Video and Media Arts classes, photography classes, the Installation class, as well as senior seminar students. The mixed nature of the group reflects the featured artist's own diverse range of work.

Nauman is in fact notorious for his lack of a signature style. He is truly a mixed media artist, and his 30 year body of work includes sculpture, drawings, video, theater, installation and dance. This lack of a solid identity is probably the reason that he is not that widely known in the public realm. However, art circles consider him to be one of the most prominent artists of the late 20th century, crediting him as one of the driving forces behind this generation of post-minimalist contemporary art.

Some of his influences can be traced to such greats as Beckett, Cunningham, deKooning, Man Ray and Picasso. Although his work comes in many different mediums and materials, from neon light sculpture to foam casts of animal parts to steel cages, there does seem to be an overarching quality it effects. They seem intentionally vague and deliberately sullen, challenging but not in an esoteric way. Nauman also emphasizes his attraction to the theatricality of art, that the viewing of art should be a total, sensory experience.

The Symposium opens at 10 a.m. with a distinguished panel of experts that will discuss Nauman as artist and founder. The panel includes Lucinda Barnes from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Robert Storr from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Ingrid Schaffner who is an independent curator and writer based in New York, and Jill Snyder from the Cleveland center itself.

The afternoon will consist of worshops and smaller discussions revolving around the contemporary application of Nauman's work. Finally, there will be a student reception at 5 p.m., where students have been invited to submit any works on video that they may have for critique and discussion with professional artists.

Although Oberlin students are only planning on attending the Saturday portion of the symposium, the Sunday program sounds equally engaging. It will focus on the ties between Nauman's work and the work of Samuel Beckett. "SignStage," Cleveland's theater for the deaf, will perform an excerpt from Beckett's Waiting for Godot, followed by a commentary from Beckett scholar Walter Struass.

Overall, it seems as though a large theme of this symposium is to explore Nauman's influence on today's generation of contemporary artists. In any case, it is a rare treat to leave the isolation of Oberlin and be exposed to an exhibition of such high stature. The event promises to be intriguing and inspiring for the aspiring art students of Oberlin, well worth a stolen Saturday.

"Double Poke in the eye: Bruce Nauman and Related Topics" takes place March 7-8 at the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art. For more information, call 421-8671