Art Make-Up (1970)

Art Make-Up is composed of four individual segments, each 10 minutes long. In them, Nauman appears tightly framed by the camera against a blank background, shirtless, and visible from the torso up. The action begins. Dipping his fingers into a small dish of makeup, he smears his face and body with the thick pigment until he is entirely covered. As the work’s title indicates, he begins with white makeup. He then moves on to pink, green, and, finally, black, layering each color on top of the previous ones.