NAUMAN,
Bruce. CLEA RSKY. N.p.:
Castelli Gallery, n.d. [1968].
Square 4to.; illustrated
throughout in color; printed wrappers; staple-bound. Fine.
First edition.
[and]
NAUMAN,
Bruce. LAAIR. New York
Square 4to.; illustrated throughout
in color; printed wrappers; staple-bound. Fine.
First edition; one of 1,200
copies.
CLEAR
SKY was a way to have a book that only had colored pages--pictures of the sky.
I like the idea that you are looking into an image of the sky, but it is just a
page. LA AIR was the same idea, but it is also a response to CLEAR SKY using
polluted colors instead. —Bruce
Nauman
Few works of contemporary art
have so intransigently defied exegesis as this pair of books, and despite the
straightforward description of them quoted above, this unresolved quality seems
to have been Nauman’s point. The words of titles are printed so they don’t immediately
register (Clean? Risky? Lair?) and this potential for mis-reading suggests that
one might just as easily mis-read the contents. Images of the sky? Or just
swatches of color? This difficulty seems even to extend to the problem of
describing the books bibliographically. For example, both were published with
Nauman’s signature printed on the back cover, but one frequently sees them described
as “signed” in catalogs or library citations. Different reference works render
their titles variously as Clear Sky, Clearsky, Clear Sky, Clea Rsky , LA
sold
