Life Mask
A stark and unsettling lithograph by Bruce Nauman, *Life Mask* presents a direct impression of the human face as both document and object, blurring the boundary between portraiture and sculptural record. True to Nauman's conceptual practice, the work strips representation down to its most elemental form, forcing a confrontation with the face as surface rather than window to identity. Printed on the textured weight of Arches Cover paper, the lithograph emphasizes the physicality of mark and impression, underscoring Nauman's enduring investigation into the body as subject and material.
- Medium
- Lithograph, on Arches Cover paper, with full margins,
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Evening & Day Editions
January 22, 2015
Collectors with works by Bruce Nauman
Artists in conversation
Jasper Johns
American · b. 1930
Johns similarly treats the human body as a conceptual object through cast impressions and prints, particularly in his body part lithographs and monoprints that emphasize physical trace over expressive representation, sharing Nauman's interest in the body as documentary subject.
Vito Acconci
American · b. 1940
Acconci shared Nauman's conceptual and body art framework, using the self as raw material in works that confront the viewer with the face and body as both subject and object, stripped of conventional portraiture and charged with psychological unease.
Arnulf Rainer
Austrian · b. 1929
Rainer obsessively worked with face masks and death masks in monochromatic prints and overpaints, reducing the human face to a physical surface record and confronting identity through elemental mark making in ways that closely parallel Nauman's approach in Life Mask.
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