Focal Points: Bruce Nauman

How can we interpret the work of contemporary artists? First released in 2024, Focal Points is a book series of essays, articles and reviews by acclaimed curator and critic Robert Storr. Expertly edited by art historian and curator Francesca Pietropaolo, and richly illustrated, it lends Storr’s illuminating insights into an artist’s practice and way of thinking across recent decades. Brilliantly scholarly, accessible and engaging, Focal Points offers fresh interpretations of the varied territory of modern and contemporary art.

Through a selection of texts spanning from 1986 to 2016, volume one brings together thirty years of Storr’s writings on American artist Bruce Nauman (b.1941) whose practice encompasses sculpture, photography, neon, drawing, printmaking and performance. Much of Nauman’s work makes use of language games and visual puns, influenced by the linguistic theories of twentieth-century thinker Ludwig Wittgenstein and by the work of writer, poet and playwright Samuel Beckett. Describing his work in 1970, Nauman said: ‘Sometimes the activity involves making something, and sometimes the activity is the piece.’

To coincide with the publication of the first three volumes, a new film has been released by HENI Talks, featuring Robert Storr, in conversation with Norwich-based art writer and editor Aimee Dawson. Discussing all three volumes, sharing his illuminating insights, the author discusses the artist-critic relationship, the commitment not to rewrite the back catalogue and to a continually evolving point of view in "the spirit of a staircase". Watch the interview here.