“Video Now: Artists Working in the Spirit of Bruce Nauman”

The Menil and the Aurora Picture Show pay tribute to those who pay tribute to the groundbreaking video artist

By Nick Keppler

published: January 10, 2008

If you’re the type of art lover who gets aroused by the words “video installation,” thank Bruce Nauman. The San Francisco-based artist, whose works on and off the screen are on display at the Menil’s “A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s,” was one of the first to loop weird film captures (such as, say, clowns subjected to various degradations, the subject of his semi-infamous Clown Torture). The Menil and Aurora Picture Show are paying tribute to artists who’ve paid tribute to Nauman with “Video Now: Artists Working in the Spirit of Bruce Nauman,” screening today in the museum’s parking lot. Get a peek at modern “video artists” like Jill Miller, whose I Am Making Art Too superimposes her hip-hop dance moves over John Baldessari’s 1971 tai chi-inspired performance piece, I Am Making Art; Alex Villar, who places himself within re-creations of everyday objects like manholes and garbage cans for passersby to see; and Anne McGuire, who injects herself into vintage TV footage, always going for an eerie effect. 8 p.m. 1515 Sul Ross Street. For information, call 713–868–2101 or visit www.aurorapictureshow.org. Free.
Sat., Jan. 12, 8 p.m., 2008