Bruce Nauman's 1999 Video 'Setting a Good Corner' Explores Art in Daily Labor

Bruce Nauman's 1999 video work 'Setting a Good Corner (Allegory and Metaphor)' documents the artist constructing a fence corner on his Las Madres ranch in New Mexico. The 59-minute, 18-second single-shot video shows Nauman wearing a cowboy hat and work clothes while installing three cedar railway sleepers as posts, assisted by neighbor Bill Riggins. Nauman's wife Susan Rothenberg appears intermittently alongside various animals during the ordinary ranch day. Text scrolls at the beginning explain that a good fence requires a good corner, while concluding text features Riggins' practical assessment of Nauman's work. Created when Nauman was nearly sixty, the video preceded his 2001 piece 'Mapping the Studio I (Fat Chance John Cage)' and demonstrates his use of formal constraints, beginning and ending with the physical task. The work transforms mundane labor into artistic meditation, suggesting how daily activities can embody philosophical principles. Nauman's exhibition 'Disappearing Acts' was scheduled at Schaulager in Basel through August 26, 2018, with subsequent presentations at MoMA and MoMA PS1 in New York from October 21, 2018, to March 17, 2019. The video was originally featured in a museum group show before becoming available online, though it has since been removed. Nauman described the corner as beautiful, creating what he considered a permanently installed minimalist sculpture through the documented process.