{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Gift of Christopher Forbes, Class of 1972, on the occasion of his 40th reunion, Charlotte Forbes Escaravage, Class of 1997, and Phillip Escaravage, Class of 1997, on their 15th reunion","caption":"Bruce Nauman (American, born 1941), Double Poke in the Eye II, 1985. Neon tubing mounted on aluminum monolith. Gift of Christopher Forbes, Class of 1972, on the occasion of his 40th reunion, Charlotte Forbes Escaravage, Class of 1997, and Phillip Escaravage, Class of 1997, on their 15th reunion (2012-45)","cultureterms":[{"id":2038492,"culture":"American"}],"type":"artobject","dimensionsproposed":"","terms":[{"id":2158086,"term":"heads","aatid":null,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2055230,"term":"neon sculpture","aatid":300047225,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2051582,"term":"profiles (figures)","aatid":300123319,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2100226,"term":"violence","aatid":300192799,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2038492,"term":"American","aatid":300107956,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2054791,"term":"sculpture","aatid":300047090,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2163119,"term":"neon","aatid":300180393,"termtype":"Materials"},{"id":2161969,"term":"aluminum","aatid":300011015,"termtype":"Materials"}],"geography":[],"dimensionelements":[],"markings":null,"accessionyear":"2012-01-01","newaccession":0,"makers":[{"id":3969,"displayname":"Bruce Nauman","displaydate":"American, born 1941","datebegin":1941,"dateend":2100,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Bruce Nauman, American, born 1941","displayorder":1}],"datecomputed":1985,"signed":null,"restrictions":"Restricted","classification":"Sculpture","packages":[{"packageid":206417,"name":"image_descriptions_top250"},{"packageid":211430,"name":"PUAM_Materials and Techniques"},{"packageid":214385,"name":"web_Forbes"},{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"}],"catalograisonne":null,"classifications":[{"id":2054791,"classification":"sculpture"},{"id":2055230,"classification":"neon sculpture"}],"exhibitions":[],"cultures":[],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2012-45_1"],"displaytitle":"Double Poke in the Eye II","displayculture":null,"displaymaker":"Bruce Nauman, American, born 1941","captionhtml":"Bruce Nauman (American, born 1941), Double Poke in the Eye II, 1985. Neon tubing mounted on aluminum monolith. Gift of Christopher Forbes, Class of 1972, on the occasion of his 40th reunion, Charlotte Forbes Escaravage, Class of 1997, and Phillip Escaravage, Class of 1997, on their 15th reunion (2012-45)","displaydate":"1985","medium":"Neon tubing mounted on aluminum monolith","media":[{"id":70672,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2012-45_1","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"Bruce White Photography"}],"displayperiod":null,"extended_content":true,"campuscollections":"false","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2012,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 71/72 (2012-13): p. 105-132.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2012,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 71/72 (2012-13): p. 105-132., pp. 122–123 (illus.)","date":2012,"id":2988,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/24416388"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 296","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"Modern and Contemporary Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1945-present","dateend":1985,"depicted":[],"titles":[{"title":"Double Poke in the Eye II","titletype":"Primary Title","displayorder":1}],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"© 2013 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York","objectnumber":"2012-45","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"Commissioned by The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, New York. Christopher Forbes, New York, New York, gift; to Princeton University Art Museum, 2012.","remarks":"as per deed of gift (donors file). transfer of property from the New Museum on July 22, 1986, potentially to Christopher Forbes but the letter does not mention Forbes' name. AP"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nFingers belonging to two disembodied heads extend and then retract, generating a cycle of violence that neither escalates nor stops. Such is the spectacle created by Double Poke in the Eye II, one of Bruce Nauman’s last works to utilize commercial-grade neon. As early as 1965–66, Nauman began to experiment with neon. This new body of work consisted of neither objects nor paintings but what the artist called \"signs.\" Often employing alliterations, anagrams, puns, palindromes, rebuses, inversions, and rhymes, Nauman’s early neons were among the first works of art to utilize light and language as materials. His neons from the early to mid-1980s, by contrast, include both linguistic and figurative elements. Almost without fail, they address the antinomies of the human condition — sex and death, love and cruelty, humor and tragedy — as well as politically inflected current events. Double Poke in the Eye II is a riff on the platitude \"Better than a poke in the eye [with a sharp stick].\" A switching mechanism regulates the tempo of illumination, while the combination of malicious behavior and bewitching color exemplifies the artist’s commitment to contradiction and incongruity. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"\r\nNauman’s sculptures often play humorously on symbols and language to present socio-political commentary. In Double Poke in the Eye II, Nauman employed neon tubing and static animation, methods of commercial advertisement, to create a vignette of human action and retort—here either humorous and playful or vengeful and violent. His first professional studio was a San Francisco storefront from which he looked out onto neon advertisements in the windows of neighborhood stores and bars. A desire to bridge the divide between one’s everyday surroundings and the subjects, materials, and concepts of artistic practice was a motivating force for many American artists of the 1960s and ‘70s. ","remarks":"PBL Rotation March 2017"}],"datebegin":1985,"sortnumber":"2012 45","published_date":"2026-03-31 02:46:27.529275","objectid":65165,"dimensions":"61 x 91.4 x 23.5 cm (24 x 36 x 9 ¼ in.) \r\nNeon tubing: 35.6 x 73.7 x 7.6 cm (14 x 29 x 3 in.)","on_view":false}