Flesh to White to Black to Flesh
Bruce Nauman
American, born 1941
1968
A 51-minute black-and-white video by Bruce Nauman that uses slow, repetitive footage of the body and sound to probe presence, transformation, and the performative nature of the self.
You encounter grainy, high-contrast close-ups—turned heads, a gaunt torso, shifting shadows and a hand near a masklike face—whose halting, repetitive gestures make the body feel intimately vulnerable and strangely alien.
As an early durational video piece, it helped move art beyond objects into time-based performance, treating the body and voice as material and shaping generations of video and performance art.
Medium
Video (black and white, sound)
Dimensions
51 min.
Classification
Department
Credit
Purchase
Accession
622.2012
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
