No.37 Self Portrait Upside Down Black Coated Paper Eyes Closed (2025) belongs to a recent body of work in which Bruce Nauman returns to drawing as both a physical exercise and a process of experimentation. Presented as a stereoscopic 3D projection, the video records the artist drawing with his eyes closed, relying on touch, memory, and bodily movement rather than visual control. The resulting image is not so much a document of outcome but of process. We witness a moment of improvisation in which uncertainty, chance, and repetition become central subjects of the piece.

Viewed through 3D glasses, Nauman’s figure appears to extend beyond the screen. His body, bent over the drawing surface, occupies the foreground while the studio recedes into warped perspective, creating a heightened awareness of depth and physical presence. The video’s ultra-slowed pace transforms simple actions into sustained gestures. Every scrape of the stylus and movement across the paper becomes amplified, producing an immersive soundscape in which drawing is experienced as both visual and sonic activity.

The work forms part of an ongoing investigation into perception and the limits of artistic control. By drawing blind and presenting an inverted orientation, Nauman deliberately disrupts habitual ways of seeing. The self-portrait is therefore less a likeness than a record of process: a trace of concentration, vulnerability, and embodied labour. Rather than presenting a finished image as the primary subject, the video foregrounds the act of making itself, revealing drawing as a durational performance in which the body, the mark, and the passage of time remain inseparable.