'Setting a Good Corner' (Allegory and Metaphor) - Bruce Nauman

‘Setting a Good Corner’ (Allegory and Metaphor)– Bruce Nauman

I have decided to look at Bruce Nauman’s ‘Setting a Good Corner’ 1999, a piece of video art depicting the artist installing as fence post, looped repeatedly.

I feel this work is significant as it confronts the viewer with a structure which they are unaccustomed to. Everyday television provides the viewer with a narrative structure; however this piece repeats something generally seen as mundane and succeeds in entrancing the viewer, with its hypnotic quality.

Nauman himself has commented on the work, stating that he was as much interested in making a good fence, as filming the activity. This idea brings more meaning to the piece; and the viewer can look at it as a reflection of real life, essentially bordering on the idea of documentary.
Commenting on his previous work containing a built-in continuous loop ‘The Artist is an Amazing Luminous Fountain’1967, Nauman stated :-

‘You don't have to sit and watch the whole thing. You can watch for a while, leave and go have lunch or come back in a week, and it's just going on. And I really liked that idea of the thing just being there. The idea being there so that it became almost like an object that was there, that you could go back and visit whenever you wanted to.’

I feel this idea is very much carried over to ‘Setting a Good Corner’ where it is possible for the viewer to tune in and out of the piece; there is no requirement to see the whole thing. The idea that nothing much happens is significant, whilst the MTV generation looks to video to provide fast paced excitement, Nauman has used video to retaliate against this, instead depicting something slow moving with not much action or noise.

I like the idea of something so raw and simplistic becoming so fascinating through the medium of video. I like the dual purpose of the piece, firstly as a form of video art and secondly on a more basic level of a man really building a fence.