Raw War

Artist Bruce Nauman (American, born 1941)

Date1971

MediumColor lithograph on white Arches wove paper

DimensionsOverall: 22 3/8 x 28 1/8in. (56.8 x 71.4cm)

ClassificationsPRINTS

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Terms

20th Century

Object number92.44

On View

Not on view

Collections

Graphic Arts

Label TextThroughout his career Bruce Nauman has created neon text sculptures in which he combines words that are puns, anagrams or otherwise mirror each other to enhance the meaning of that combination. These include Raw/War. And, as in this instance, he sometimes re-worked the piece into a two-dimensional image. Here Nauman successfully transformed the startling red neon "Raw"-flash-"War" into a quieter, murkier statement in which the transition between words is measured and atmospheric. Raw/War dates to 1971, the middle of the Viet Nam War. Among many other meanings, this notorious conflict embodies the Cold War struggle for supremacy between the super powers' ideologies (capitalist democracy and communism), but it was played out over many years and with enormous loss on the Southeast Asian peninsula. In the United States the war has come to represent divisiveness of its tumultuous era, including a seismic generational breach, the rejection by youth of their elders' traditional values that they deemed hypocritical, grasping, or constraining to individual expression. Though inspired by an historical moment, in Nauman's direct treatment of the words, Raw/War transcends the specifics of 1971 and remains unfortunately relevant for today's bellicose conditions around the globe. MEM 2002