Caned Dance from Merce Cunningham Portfolio

Bruce Nauman

1974, published 1975

A lithograph from Bruce Nauman’s Merce Cunningham Portfolio that translates the rhythms of Cunningham’s choreography into layered, painterly dabs of color across the sheet.

At first glance it reads as a shimmering field of repeated fingertip-like marks—yellow, green, and salmon strokes—stacked into swirling oval paths that seem to pulse and sweep across the paper.

Part of 1970s experiments linking visual art and dance, it uses printmaking’s repetition and color layering to make temporal movement visible and to expand how prints can record and reinterpret performance.

Palette

Art Terms

Lithography Print Abstraction Gestural Dance Performance Contemporary art

Exhibitions

The Stage Show

1979

Pop Art Prints, Drawings, and Multiples

1970

Handmade Paper Prints and Unique Works

1976

American Prints, 1960–1985

1987