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Art Make-Up

A work made of four 16mm color films, silent, transferred to digital video (projection); 42 min. 30 sec. loop.
© 2018 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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  • A work made of four 16mm color films, silent, transferred to digital video (projection); 42 min. 30 sec. loop.

Date:

1967/68

Artist:

Bruce Nauman
American, born 1941

About this artwork

Bruce Nauman’s influential work explores the poetics of boredom, entrapment, and failure. Many of his important early works, such as Art Make-Up, grew out of his involvement with experimental film and video in the 1960s, in which the artist often used his own body as the vehicle for exploration. Here Nauman applied colored makeup—white, pink, green, and finally black—in successive layers to his face and torso. Art Make-Up introduces the themes of surveillance and masking that recur in the artist’s later work. His entire oeuvre can be read as a self-conscious investigation into the conditions and possibilities of art making.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Bruce Nauman

Title

Art Make-Up

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1967–1968

Medium

Four 16mm color films, silent, transferred to digital video (projection); 42 min. 30 sec. loop

Credit Line

Twentieth-Century Purchase Fund

Reference Number

1974.229a-d

Copyright

© 2018 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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