Movement
I have always presumed art to be paintings and sculptures, surrounded by security perimeter in a gallery, where people simply look at them from a distance and praise them for their “aestheticism.” Although paintings and sculptures are undoubtedly a form of art, “art” is not limited to physical objects. It is more than something that is created to be pleasant to people’s eyes. In fact, art is a medium used to express human creativity and imagination, produced in various and unlimited ways. In his film “Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square,” Bruce Nauman redefines art and contributes to the movement of breaking social standards of art and expression.
After watching videos of Bruce Nauman in class, I developed interest in him and his works, which led me to look into his work called “Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square.” The film features Nauman in a studio with two squared perimeters on the floor, with a bigger square surrounding the inner square. Nauman first walks on the perimeter of the bigger square, with one foot right strictly before the other. When he completes the path and reaches the starting point, he walks backwards on the same track to get to the starting point once again. After finishing walking on the outer square, he repeats the process for the inner square.
My first reaction to the film was shock. It was difficult to perceive Nauman’s work as any form of art. To me, it felt like a very simple and repetitive video of the same individual plainly walking along a path. Then, I comprehended Nauman’s intention to break the confinement of art that many people, including me, held. Despite many people’s belief that art must be “beautiful” and be displayed in a gallery, Nauman’s work is intangible and is very hard to be seen as beautiful or aesthetic. However, it is special. It is different. Although Nauman’s work differs from the traditional form of art, it expresses Nauman’s creativity and imagination just as much as, if not more, a painting and a sculpture would. With his films, Nauman broke the boundaries of art and brought diversity to the uniform art community of the time by introducing a different style of art.
Ironically, despite the divergence Nauman brought to the definition of art, there definitely are striking consistencies in all of Nauman’s works. Despite his original intentions to escape the social standards and norm of art and diversify forms of art, Nauman’s three works share apparent similarities; they all feature the same model, Bruce Nauman himself, walking in the same fashion of placing a foot right ahead of another along a path in an exaggerated manner.
Ironically, Nauman used those similarities to introduce the idea of diversity in consistency. Although Nauman walked in the same fashion in every film, he also differed his films by creating individual settings and paths to walk on. In this particular film, Nauman walks around two squared perimeters, compared to a different film, in which Nauman walks along a dark alley. Furthermore, Nauman thought of distinct manners to walk with. For instance, in the film “Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square” simply by walking backwards barefoot with an extra emphasis on his hips, he thought of a new way of expression, breaking the traditional method of walking. By bringing diversity in such minor details, Nauman signified that art is not distant, but rather commonplace, just created with a different approach and perspective towards an idea or object.
Nauman definitely brought diversity to the classic definition of art and expression by introducing completely different styles of art; he created works that were rather approachable yet unique, showing his intentional movement to subvert the dominant culture of uniformity. His works enlighten us to realize that “art” isn’t a displayed object, but an expression that could be developed into a movement, both literally and figuratively.
