Bruce Nauman (b. 1941) is one of the most influential artists to emerge in the late 20th century. Working across sculpture, performance, video, drawing, neon, sound and installation, Nauman has continually questioned what constitutes an artwork and what it means to be an artist. The body, language, repetition and tension recur throughout his practice that can be playful, unsettling and disorienting. Nauman studied mathematics and physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison before earning his M.A. in art from University of California, Davis, in 1966. At Davis, he was a teaching assistant to Wayne Thiebaud and studied closely with William T. Wiley, whose experimentation, wordplay and irreverent approach to art making proved especially influential. Nauman absorbed the department’s openness to unconventional materials and ideas, while developing the conceptual approach that would define his career. His experiments at UC Davis—including early performances in which his own body became both material and subject—helped lay the groundwork for his groundbreaking exploration of the boundaries between art and everyday activity.