Bruce Nauman | Hand Pair
Hand Pair
1996
Silicon bronze
Hand pair: 4 1/2 x 15 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches
Fingertip: 5/8 x 2 x 3/4 inches
© 2019 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS). Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography
Bruce Nauman has used his body as raw material since the late 1960s, when he made now-canonical videos of himself performing repetitive tasks for long stretches of time. In Hand Pair “A,” he offers up his most expressive body part, the most foundational tool of his artistic production: his hands. This silicon bronze sculpture is one of two produced as proofs for those seen in his series Fifteen Pairs of Hands and in the sculpture Untitled (Hand Circle). The artist cast his left and right hand to the wrist, welding the resulting bronzes together such that they reach in opposite directions. The left hand makes a circle between thumb and index finger and the right extends its pointer, which is severed at the tip. While these gestures recall such iconic works as Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam (c. 1512) and Rodin’s The Cathedral (1908), Nauman’s hands are seen intimately, with all their wrinkles and veins. In Untitled (Hand Circle), this hand pair is joined with four others in a daisy chain ring, such that the fingers demonstrate a recognizable and irreverent sexual symbol—the insertion of the index finger into a hole. Removed from this context, the sculpture attests to the expressive potential and productive ambiguity of nonverbal communication.