ickysodden

[ickysodden]

Bruce Nauman's Clown Torture: Sharing Anxiety and Pain with a Clown

Bruce Nauman's shift into disturbing psychological and physical themes was successful in showing an untouched area of his mind. "Clown Torture" doesn't come off as a dream. It doesn't seem like it isn't real or nonsensical. It, unfortunately, makes sense.

It appears that a Clown is told to do a job, but it's different than what he signed up for. Nothing comes off as a joke and the clown is distressed by the fact that he is the butt off all the jokes. Even if dark humor tickles your fancy, the presentation of the films takes all forms of humor away. It's overloads your senses in a way that makes you wonder "Why did I walk into this exhibit?".

In "Clown Torture" (1987), there are 6 screens. There are 5 screens, 4 small televisions, and a large screen, the size of the wall, that play the same four videos. These screen have all been started at different times, so they never sync. The names of these videos are "Clown with Goldfish", "No,No,No,No", "Clown with Water Bucket", and "Pete and Repeat". It takes about an hour for all four videos to play. The large screen on the left wall, my personal favorite, has the clown sitting on the toilet. I was not able to time this video, but it seemed longer than 15 minutes. Or, perhaps, being in that exhibit temporarily took away my concept of time. In this short video, you see the layout of the screens, and hear a snippet of how lovely it was to be in that room for ~45 minutes.

In "Clown with Goldfish", I was met with the pleas of help from the clown. For the sake of a joke, one still popular as it was a trend on Vine (RIP), the clown was left there for an undetermined amount of time. For those unfamiliar, this prank requires a bowl of water and a stick long enough to reach the ceiling, usually this is a broom. To get the prank started, the bowl of water must be placed against the ceiling and held there with the broom. Then, someone needs to get tricked into holding it there. In today's version of the prank, you may see people challenge one another to get the bowl down. But this clown seemed to not have that challenge. We don't know how long he's been there, but his distress can be felt. All humor from the prank is gone and it's straight in the territory of torture. Though, a low form (how many of us remember childhood punishments that required holding a position for a long time?), it is torture none-the-less, especially since, as a clown, you expect the punch line to come quicker. The clown screams are loud, distressed, and impatient. It's as if he knows he is being watched and he sees no one coming coming to his aid. Does he see people laughing? Does he see blank stares? Or does he know someone has to comeback for the camera and is making assumptions? The video ends with the bowl falling and breaking, the clown looking at it in shock. He hadn't meant it to happen, but with his arm growing tired, it was bound to happen. If there was consequences to this, we never see it as it quickly cuts to the next video.

Next is "Clown with a Water Bucket". This videos prank is a classic. On the top of the door is a bucket of water, when the Clown opens the door, it falls and he gets splashed with water. The clown looks upset at the end. This video is what initially made me lose concept of time as it repeats over and over again. But, after a while, the contents of the bucket change from water to some sort of paper (money?) either way, the clowns distressed face was ever present. It's his expression that supposedly made it funny, after all.

In "Pete and Repeat", the clown is saying an "inescapable nursery rhyme" as the Art Institute of Chicago described it. With all the noise loading the senses, it's hard to pick out what the Clown was saying. At the beginning of the video, the clown is the calmest I've seen him that day. He is speaking directly to the camera as he says rhyming words. His distress comes slowly as he continues to speak. As a daycare worker, I can relate to the feeling a bit. Saying rhyming words for too long irritates the tongue.

In, "No, No, No, No", as expected, the Clown is in a constant state of screaming "No". His body moves like a child throwing a tantrum. Honestly, after seeing what he has been through, he deserves a little tantrum or too. He deserves to be able to say "No". But will he be listened to? Perhaps we find the answer in the next video, which doesn't have a name I could find.

I decided to call it "Clown on the Toilet". In this video, the Clown is sitting on a toilet in a multi-stall bathroom. His pants are still pulled up and he shows no sign of actually needing to use the bathroom. He sometimes plays with the tissue. He even pulls of a magazine to read. It would seem he's simply procrastination on the toilet ( a favorite pastime I share) but then he stops. He's stops moving and leans forward, as if trying to hear who enter the bathroom. He does his best to stay quiet, as if hiding. Hiding from what? Possibly the people who he told No to.

When I left this exhibit, I found it hard to think. Mostly because I just left an extremely dark room with 6 screens and loud screaming, to the quiet, white and beige walls of the Art Institute of Chicago. But even as I got on the bus, I found it hard to think of other things. The Clown's distress had completely taken my mind. Perhaps that was my true punishment for choosing to stay in that room for 40 min (even the security guard making his rounds was shocked I was still there). As I think, I couldn't help but wonder what the torture refer to. Was the clown truly being tortured? A lot of what he's been though were pranks, pranks he could've easily avoided if he simply didn't easily trust those around him. Or perhaps the torture was given him that mindset, forcing him to hide away in the bathroom to avoid having to experience more pranks. Or maybe the Clown wasn't being tortured: It was the viewer. The ones who walked through a door, knowing they were going to see someone in distress, Choosing to see someone in distress.

I choose to see a clown in distress, and I was tortured for it.