Bruce Nauman Quotes

What is it that an artist does when he is left alone in his studio? My conclusion was that if I was an artist and I was in the studio, then everything I was doing in the studio should be art . . . . From that point on, art became more of an activity and less of a product.

If you really want to do it, you do it. There are no excuses.

My work is basically an outgrowth of the anger I feel about the human condition. The aspects of it that make me angry are our capacity for cruelty and the ability people have to ignore situations they don't like.

The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.

A good teacher is like a good artist. They go right to the most difficult part of whatever's going on.

If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.

I want to be in the studio. I want to be doing something. You just do whatever is at hand, and you don't even worry about whether it's going to be interesting or not interesting to anybody else-or even yourself. You just have to make something.

When I was in art school, I thought art was something I would learn how to do, and then I would just do it. At a certain point I realized that it wasn't going to work like that. Basically, I would have to start over every day and figure out what art was going to be.

Pete and Repeat were sitting on a wall. Pete fell off. Who was left? Repeat.

In art, the only one who really knows whether what you've done is honest is the artist.

It's interesting when you make things or do things that open up the possibilities for making more things, or different kinds of things.

Learn to recognise when you need to know something.

I thought I might have to give up art, but I couldn't think of anything else to do.

What I am really concerned about is what art is supposed to be - and can become.

If you choose the wrong questions and you proceed, you still get a result, but it's not interesting.

I like to use my hands and make things... It might seem pretty stupid or pointless but that doesn't matter... some of the most interesting work is the stuff that starts like that - out of a raw need for activity.

I'm surprised when the work appears beautiful, and very pleased. And I think work can be very good and very successful without being able to call it beautiful, although I'm not clear about that. The work is good when it has a certain completeness; and when it's got a certain completeness, then it's beautiful.

Did you stop because it was good enough, or could have done more - but then maybe ruined it too? Sometimes you finish because you've gone too far.

My videos always involve some idea of a human being in a unusual situation-and what happens.

I'll talk. You'll listen.

In the studio, I don't do a lot of work that requires repetitive activity. I spend a lot of time looking and thinking and then try to find the most efficient way to get what I want, whether it's making a drawing or a sculpture, or casting plaster or whatever.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.

Generalised anger and frustration is something that gets you in the studio, and gets you to work - though it's not necessarily evident in anything that's finished.

I don't like to think about being an influence. It's embarrassing.

And sometimes the question that you pose or the project that you start yourself turns into something else, you know, but at least it gets you started.