Regarded as one of America’s most important and influential conceptual artists, Bruce Nauman (b.1941) has consistently challenged conventions and tested the possibilities of what may be considered art. Since the mid-1960s, his works using sound, film, video and neon have explored themes of language, communication and the human condition. His interest in the body has focussed on how familiar bodily activities – such as walking, speaking or cleaning – can carry psychological or even pathological significance. Hands and their expressive potential are a recurring motif, most notably in the intimate sculptural series ‘Fifteen Pairs of Hands’ (1996), in which disembodied bronze hands, cast from the artist’s own, are arrested in various positions and gestures: in prayer, touching fingertips or, as here, clasped together. Art history bears witness to the incredible capacity that hands have for expression and emotion and Nauman’s work points to their potential for communication when words are absent or lacking.