Walk with Contraposto

Bruce Nauman

Walk with Contraposto, 1968

Artwork text

Nauman focuses his video camera down the length of a long, twenty-inch corridor, which he built in his Southampton studio expressly as a prop for the videotape. With his hands clasped behind his neck and swinging his hips, he animates a classic contraposto pose as he walks up and down the length of the corridor. "The camera was placed so that the walls came in at either side of the screen," he explained. "You couldn't see the rest of the studio, and my head was cut off most of the time. ...In most of the pieces I made [in 1969] you could see only the back of my head, pictures from the back or from the top." (Electronic Arts Intermix)