Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
"For Bruce Nauman, drawing is equivalent to thinking."
—Coosje van BruggenA monumental rendering of Bruce Nauman’s eponymous sculpture executed the same year, Musical Chair, 1983, presents one of the artist’s most well-known themes while manifesting the importance of drawing to the artist’s practice. Referring to the children’s game, the present work coalesces Nauman’s deliberations on subject matter, form, and technique. Here, Nauman employed charcoal and ink to render two chairs suspended in mid-air beside two crossing I-beams, while annotating his visualization of the sculpture’s X-configuration from a bird’s-eye view in pencil at the lower left of the composition. Hailing from an esteemed private collection, where it has resided for nearly forty years since its execution, Musical Chair featured in Nauman’s 1985 exhibition, New Works on Paper 3, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A masterpiece of Nauman’s draftsmanship, Musical Chair offers a unique glimpse into the mind of one of the most conceptually rigorous artists of the 21st century.
The present work installed at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, New Works on Paper 3, June 26 –September 3, 1985. Photographic Archive. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. IN1401.14. Image: Katherine Keller, Artwork: © 2021 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York "When I take the game, I take it out of context and apply it to moral or political situations. Or I load it emotionally in a way that it is not supposed to be loaded."
—Bruce NaumanA critical motif in the artist’s oeuvre, the chair, Nauman expressed, “becomes a symbol for a figure—a stand-in for the figure. A chair is used, it is functional; but it is also symbolic. Think of the electric chair, or that chair they put you in when the police shine the lights on you. Because your imagination is left to deal with that isolation, the image becomes more powerful...The symbol is more powerful.”i Nauman’s suspended chairs typically serve as a metaphor for victims of political violence, which he first explored in South American Triangle, 1981. While discussing his series on musical chairs, Nauman expressed of the game, “Somebody is always left out. The first one to be excluded always feels terrible. That kid doesn’t get to play anymore, has nothing to do, has to stand in the corner...”1 Referencing and subverting a children’s game as he did in his notorious Hanged Man, 1985, Nauman invites viewers to contemplate the deeper moral questions that underlie such seemingly playful activities. At the same time, the present work ultimately reflects the act of making. In Musical Chair, “sculpture is presented as an object for meditation, and the drawing itself is presented as a spatial object.”ii
Andy Warhol, Big Electric Chair, 1967-1968. The Art Institute of Chicago, Image: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York "I do drawings to work the pieces out, to figure out how to proceed."
—Bruce NaumanUnlike his multi-media works that invite audience participation and self-reflection, Nauman’s drawings act as conceptual blueprints that serve as a window into the artist’s mind. In the sculptural version of Musical Chair, the chairs hang from steel cables to make contact with the beams, thus chiming the titular “music.” While privying viewers to delight in its elegant rendering, the present work reflects the mathematical rigor and engineering exactitude Nauman employed to realize the sculpture. While making mostly quick, spontaneous sketches as notes for his sculptures, Nauman also executed larger drawings to resolve the problem of a sculpture or to envision its realization. Musical Chair is one of Nauman’s most ambitious drawings, which “frequently have a raw and unfinished look; corrections, erasures, dense undecipherable areas that indicate struggle—all signs of the artist’s mental process—are still visible.”iii In the present work, Nauman renders the chairs backless and one of the beams without its cables, contemplating the physics of their arrangement to make the music possible.
![[left] Nauman’s studio with preparatory sketch, May 1983. Artwork: © 2021 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York [right] Musical Chairs, 1983. The Herbert Foundation, Gent, Artwork: © 2021 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York](https://phillips.vo.llnwd.net/v1/web_dev/lot-component/155629_FIG 3-4_44f20eda-af50-44a8-bef3-477c0d9bd708.png)
[left] Nauman’s studio with preparatory sketch, May 1983. Artwork: © 2021 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York [right] Musical Chairs, 1983. The Herbert Foundation, Gent, Artwork: © 2021 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York i Bruce Nauman, quoted in Joan Simon, “Breaking the Silence: An Interview with Bruce Nauman,” Art in America, September 18, 1987, online.
ii Bernice Rose, New Works on Paper 3, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1985, p. 10.
iii The New Museum of Contemporary Art Annual Report, The New Museum, New York, 1988.
Provenance
Konrad Fischer Galerie, Dusseldorf
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Collectie Becht, March 16 - May 6, 1984
Breda, De Beyerd Centrum Voor Beeldende Kunst, Collectie Becht, July 14 - September 2, 1984
New York, Museum of Modern Art, New Work on Paper 3, June 27 - September 3, 1985
Labège-Innopole, Centre d'Art Contemporain Midi-Pyrénées; Villeneuve-d'Ascq, Musée d'art moderne, Collection Agnès et Frits Becht, September 23, 1987 - April 11, 1988, p. 25 (installation view illustrated; erroneously dated 1981)
Barcelona, Fundació Espai Poblenou, Bruce Nauman, November 7, 1991 - February 29, 1992, p. 208
Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Museum Paleis Lange Voorhout, De Kamer, de Spiegel en het Raam, October 27, 1992 - January 24, 1993
Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum, Openingstentoontelling, March 9 - September 1995Literature
Bruce Nauman Drawings: 1965-1986, exh. cat., Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel, 1986, no. 435, n.p. (illustrated; preliminary study for Musical Chair, artist's studio, May 1983, illustrated, p. 10)
Property from an Important Dutch Collection
Ο◆40
Musical Chair
titled and inscribed "abstract chairs musical chairs" lower left; signed and dated "B. Nauman 83" lower right
ink and charcoal on paper
68 x 80 in. (172.7 x 203.2 cm)
Executed in 1983.
Estimate
$1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Auctions
New York
+1 212 940 1278
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 23 June 2021
1
Cinga Samson
Two piece 1
Estimate $25,000 - 35,000
Sold for $378,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
2
Jadé Fadojutimi
Untitled
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $390,600
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
3
Salman Toor
Fort Greene
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $478,800
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
4
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $4,144,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
5
Matthew Wong
The Reader
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $2,329,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
6
Winston Churchill
The Moat, Breccles
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,845,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
7
Matthew Wong
Field in a Dream
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $2,934,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
8
Jean Dubuffet
L'homme à la toque
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,571,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
9
Emily Mae Smith
Waiting Room
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $756,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
10
Nicole Eisenman
Whatever Guy
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $840,700
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
11
Norman Lewis
Abstract City
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,119,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
12
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
Bananas
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,300,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
13
David Hockney
A Neat Lawn
Estimate $9,500,000 - 10,500,000
Sold for $11,000,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
14
Vija Celmins
Untitled (Ocean)
Estimate $5,500,000 - 6,500,000
Sold for $7,748,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
15
Carmen Herrera
Green and Orange
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,200,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
16
This lot is no longer available.
17
Brice Marden
Elements III
Estimate $3,200,000 - 3,800,000
Sold for $5,233,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
18
Amoako Boafo
Untitled
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $655,200
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
19
Titus Kaphar
Untitled III
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $1,058,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
20
Amy Sherald
It Made Sense...Mostly In Her Mind
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $3,539,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
21
Wayne Thiebaud
Winding River
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $9,809,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
22
Mark Rothko
Untitled
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,700,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
23
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Batman
Estimate $1,600,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,800,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
24
Keith Haring
Untitled (For John Sex)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $899,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
25
Takashi Murakami
Red Demon and Blue Demon with 48 Arhats
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $6,080,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
26
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (940-2)
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,112,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
27
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,902,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
28
Willem de Kooning
East Hampton V
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $3,055,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
29
Amy Sillman
Flower Giver
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $598,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
30
Alexander Calder
Fourteen Black Leaves
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,300,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
31
This lot is no longer available.
32
Julie Curtiss
Three Widows
Estimate $110,000 - 150,000
Sold for $466,200
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
33
Norman Rockwell
My Mother (Soldier with French Woman)
Estimate $350,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
34
Richard Prince
Nurses Dormitory #3
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,482,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
35
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Jessica
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,542,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
36
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,000,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
37
Georg Baselitz
Drei Herzen (Three Hearts)
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
38
Carl Andre
36 Copper Square
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,692,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
39
Robert Rauschenberg
Untitled (Elemental Sculpture)
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $315,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
40
Bruce Nauman
Musical Chair
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
41
David Hammons
It’s Not Necessary
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $5,475,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
42
Andy Warhol
Shadow (Double)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $877,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
43
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Quality Control
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $340,200
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
44
Robert Colescott
Gift of the Sea
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
45
Dana Schutz
Swiss Family Traveling
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,482,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
46
Banksy
Love Is In The Air
Estimate $1,000,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,179,500
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
47
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
48
Louise Bourgeois
Labyrinthine Tower
Estimate $550,000 - 750,000
Sold for $756,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
49
Paul McCarthy
White Snow Dwarf (Doc)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $403,200
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.
50No Reserve
Jeff Koons
Gazing Ball (Demeter)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000 •
Sold for $998,000
Create your first list.
Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.