Walk with Contrapposto (1968)

In this videotape Nauman attempted to maintain the contrapposto pose associated with classical and Renaissance sculpture while walking down a long, narrow corridor of his own design. In this position, one knee is bent, and weight is shifted to the opposing hip. Trying to walk while holding the pose of Donatello’s David is absurd and comical, but there is also a menacing discomfort to Walk with Contrapposto. With both hands behind his head, Nauman resembles a prisoner; the video camera positioned high above him might be a surveillance device. He elected to show the corridor without the video at the Whitney Museum in New York in 1969, inviting viewers to traverse it. Nauman removed himself from the piece yet maintained a claustrophobic sense of control: “It’s another way of limiting the situation so that someone else can be a performer, but he can do only what I want him to do,” he said.