FÜR KINDER – Audio Installation by Bruce Nauman

Pina Bausch Zentrum under construction, Bundesallee 260, Wuppertal 

The audio installation can be experienced before and after the public events.

We are delighted that, as part of this anniversary, we have been able to present the audio installation FÜR KINDER by Bruce Nauman, one of the world’s most important artists. The audio installation serves in particular to highlight the institution’s interdisciplinary nature, one of the facets of the future Pina Bausch Zentrum, which, along with internationalism and participation, is set to shape the art and cultural institution for the 21st century.

Bruce Nauman – FÜR KINDER (2011) is an audio installation consisting of four loudspeakers, playing on a continuous loop, with dimensions that can vary according to the space. Nauman’s interest in how sound defines space runs through numerous works from his early career. As a conceptual artist, he has worked with dance and performance as well as video, objects, and large-scale spatial installations. FÜR KINDER was first installed in 2011 at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Berlin, in an otherwise empty room.

In an interview with art critic Noemi Smolik, Nauman explained the background to the work:
“I was reading a novel and looking at the first pages. I don’t remember the author, but there was a list of books the author had published, and underneath another heading: ‘For Children,’ with a children’s book listed.

I remembered that my son was learning piano. I had given him the pieces Für Kinder (1908) by the composer Béla Bartók. They are very simple pieces, written for small hands, so that I could play a duet with him.

I remembered this and thought: ‘What would I make as an exercise for children in art?’ The only thing that came to mind was a television program in which all these children were holding their pencils. I could teach him how to hold a pencil, because in fact you first have to hold it correctly before you begin to write with it …

So I kept these different things in mind, and eventually I simply recorded the words ‘For Children’ over and over again.” (An American in Düsseldorf, frieze.com, 2011)

The audio installation has been made possible with the kind permission and support of Galerie Konrad Fischer. To mark the 60th anniversary of the Wuppertal Schauspielhaus, we dedicated a whole day to the future and the world’s greatest asset: CHILDREN!

About the Artist Bruce Nauman

“I try to make work that leaves possibilities open or is open-ended in some way.”

Bruce Nauman (born 1941, Fort Wayne, Indiana) is regarded as one of the most influential figures in postwar and contemporary art. Since the mid-1960s, he has fundamentally expanded the field of artistic practice, redefining it through conceptual, linguistic, spatial, and performative questions.

Nauman studied at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (BS, 1964), and the University of California, Davis (MFA, 1966). It was there that he arrived at an insight that would become fundamental to his entire practice: if he was an artist, anything he did in the studio – moving, speaking, or simply being present – could be understood as art. This premise opened the way to an extraordinarily diverse practice encompassing sculpture, neon works, video, performance, photography, drawing, sound, and large-scale architectural installations. To this day, his works explore the boundaries of perception, space, and psychology, often directly involving the audience through repetition, linguistic shifts, and physical disorientation.

Nauman’s first exhibition at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Düsseldorf in 1968 marked an early milestone in his international career and established a relationship that shaped his exhibition history for more than five decades. The presentation introduced his work to the European context at a decisive moment; his continuing collaboration with the gallery bears witness to an enduring dialogue that has remained central to the development and visibility of his oeuvre. In the years that followed, Nauman became the subject of numerous major institutional survey exhibitions. Early retrospectives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art (1972–73) played a significant role in establishing his position within American postwar art. A landmark European exhibition tour in 1986–87 travelled from Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, via Kunsthalle Basel to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. A major retrospective organized jointly by the Walker Art Center and the Hirshhorn Museum toured internationally from 1993 to 1995 and was followed by further comprehensive presentations in subsequent decades.

Among his major projects are Raw Materials for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern (2004), A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s (2007–08), and a survey exhibition at Fondation Cartier (2015).

Disappearing Acts, a comprehensive retrospective at Schaulager, Basel, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2018–19), represented the most extensive reassessment of his work to date. More recent projects include a touring exhibition organized by Tate Modern (2020–23), Contrapposto Studies at Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana, Venice (2021–22), His Mark at SITE Santa Fe (2023), and an exhibition at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2024).

Nauman’s work has received numerous prestigious distinctions in the art world, including the Wolf Foundation Prize in Arts (1993), the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale (1999), the Praemium Imperiale (2004), and the Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize (2014). In 2009, he represented the United States at the Venice Biennale; the US Pavilion received the Golden Lion for Best National Participation.

Bruce Nauman lives and works in New Mexico, USA.