Bruce Nauman’s Center of the Universe on the campus of the University of New Mexico inspires a personal ritual and creative essay that asks us to reconnect to the environment and ourselves.
One day in October, I captured the moon. Or maybe, the moon captured me—caught with my neck craned through the brutal aperture of the Center of the Universe. I have stood at this nexus, briefly, for dozens of days, wondering when our timing might line up, and now, here we are.
It is 77 degrees and tomorrow will be hotter.
For a small thoroughfare on the University of New Mexico campus, artist Bruce Nauman decided on an arrangement of three concrete tunnels intersecting at right angles: north-south, east-west, up-down. Construction began on the project without a name; the Center of the Universe was an afterthought.
Hated immediately upon its completion in 1988, the sculpture was ugly, discordant, dark, and difficult. It demanded engagement, even to ignore it, as it forced pedestrians in a busy campus intersection to make a choice about their path, disrupting the natural flow of movement.
In the journal Grey Room, Janet Kraynak writes, “Nauman’s environments guarantee repetition: the outcome is largely determined in advance, and the most effective means of circumscribing the beholder’s experience is put into place.”
My small ritual started innocently enough. Forever a fan of controversial public art and a Southwest solstice devotee, each day I would take one picture through the perfect square in the vertical tunnel. Soon though, I began to know what degree the light would stretch from the corners, what clouds looked like at 7:54 am, and, finally, how to catch the moon. To return each day meant I needed to wonder, to notice, to engage with the natural cycles of this place.
As the seasons changed but the weather stayed hot, the images became evidence. What does it mean to have a photo of the heartbreakingly blue October sky? What does my devotion look like as the places I love burn, my home ecosystems fall apart? When the system demands repetition, how can I stand here, trying to take a picture of this singular moment, already gone? For me, Nauman’s piece had transcended the immediate and seemed to ask a larger question: what can I do with my agency if the paths are all set by those who poured the concrete?
The industrial behemoth will, of course, dictate your outcomes, but as an individual, you must decide. You can walk around, deviating from your chosen path to avoid the bunker-like darkness, the narrowing of light. Or you can walk through, letting the tunnels straighten out your trajectory; you can put your head down and hurry through the uneasy dim.
And it may seem like any option is giving in. The sculpture remains and, sledgehammers notwithstanding, each day you’ll decide again. The Center of the Universe is giving you a gift—practice what you’ll do the next time. Here, in the darkness, there is a patch of sky you can know.
Return to the Center of the Universe and choose to look up through the concrete. Allow your eyes to soften and the light to hit your face. Notice what you can see, how it is different from the day, the moment before.
It is 77 degrees and tomorrow will be hotter.
I look up, I take my picture—
