Contrapposto Studies

Steve Dalachinsky
November 2016

Contrapposto Studies, i  through  vii,  2015/2016,  Sperone Westwater
segment from video installation, image courtesy of Arteidolia

BRUCE NAUMAN – Contrapposto Studies, i  through  vii,  2015/2016

(i’ve forgotten the order in which i’ve written this – the first the last the last the

first)

i.    as    you quietly implode

your glasses somewhere snug in your shirt pocket

sometimes  – this  I  i feel is going backward

me                   or your body

(de) shaped                       so we begin again @ the end of some

young horse breeders  search before (non) elasticity &

horses        as even the room empties into itself

this joint (your joints) heavily disjointed

& you are left with(out) your nakedness  –   the turnabout & its blankness

a wall of blank scratches  black & white inverted

a positive (un) colliding with its negative    (SO tell ME) – what’s NEW?

gravel-pit  sound your innards  (BELLY BELIES) your steps  making

under that t-shirt – what is that box under your t-shirt

those gurgle-like  sounds your belly is making

your occasional    YAH YAAAAHHHHH    isolated YAH  yah   – GOT IT?

 ii.  miked & holding tight   to the base of your skull

iii.   motion in

motion & contrary to

itself                           BEHIND the FALSE  PARTITION

negation of the positive “LOOP”

black white becoming each other   there is a known NO – difference

quantum flatness  (makes)

becoming themselves   – “difficult to watch” – the NY TIMES intones

child’s play’s all’s i see by an aging man recalling his own-ness or

regretting it – replaying it different for his camera as it has aged

along with him –

difficult NO in parts or as a whole IM/parts –

old is the re-examiner re-examining his own history

presenting the past as it is now into it’s (one’s) OWN HIS story

un gracefully swimmer-ing of a concrete mixer & how he was-is-n’t

a mixed &  mixed up money horse dealing layerer

iv.  RE –

validate

concurrent with emergence sees obsess

touch nose    or    bypass it

TURN   (A)   ROUND

la ronde    around

cubistic in its own abstracting way

then quickly scratch your nose

now place YOU beside a wall of outlets & nails

then turn

U Turn                nRuT   U   as the studio remains so STILL

yet still it moves unknowingly –

what lies under the folds of your shirt that moves you so like life-hardening jello?

insect hola as it begats theirself

v.  step toe (as a dancer might)

sequence as non-sequential as obvious order – behind your head hands
exploding

you are thinking –YES?   pensive  –  disparaged – disposed / of

we are divided amongst my selves

this is something illness brings

can bring

generic illness

specific illness

now flat screen works with heads behind

your tail         wiggle      twist

catydids drowning shortly in their own piss

(in philadelphia the story as different as it is the same) –

i’d rather be

vi.    subtext: how the body inhabits itself

inhibits itself

rejects    its  self

unglues itself then puts its selves back together

at times rather haphazardly

always squaring off swearing off / avoiding while colliding

how we are/ it is / can be / presented in other contexts

(again in re(e)ality in philly)

with smaller versions of our selves

as in this case as in MOCK UPS  as in MOCK ME as in  I MOCK ME

vii.

your glasses disappear from your pocket

there are holes beneath your armpits

your skin leaks out of your t-shirt

your black is white

your flesh is x-ray –

we are   (I)  separated from the OTHER as sure as we are ONE

in movement – the crypt will open to illness

the grave(l) pit sound of impending LIFE & how it overlaps

with the /   un   \  known – KNOWN  in 7 parts of reversal

the many fold way of front backwards from bottom’s up (WARD) of…