Sanja Iveković
Make up-Make down, 1978
b/w video
d=5:16 min
MG-6840-c
In the video “Make up – Make down”, the viewer quickly notices an unusual fact: the face of the woman applying makeup is missing. The ultimate goal of makeup application, such as applying lipstick to the lips, mascara to the eyelashes, eyeliner to the eyes, etc., is not shown. Instead, all attention is focused on the gestures through which the artist manipulates the makeup tools. These gestures are deliberately slow and erotic, attracting the male gaze but not satisfying it, thereby exposing the mechanism through which patriarchal culture establishes the association between women, femininity, and beauty. In the comments on her video "Make up – Make down," renowned Croatian artist and feminist Sanja Iveković (1947) often emphasizes the connection between the act of applying makeup and watching television. Both activities take place in private settings. “Application of makeup is a discrete activity performed between my mirror and myself. (…) The TV message is received in the isolation of a private space.” By combining these seemingly disparate practices, Iveković has achieved a distinct form of artistic critique. The video follows the basics of television marketing, image quality, and scene staging, but subtly undermines them by omitting the portrayal of the woman’s face, thereby challenging social stereotypes. The intertwining of the private and the public in Sanja Iveković’s art was noticed early on. In 1982, Marijan Susovski, a curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, wrote that her works “direct us to consider the relationship between a woman’s private life and the widely accepted, clichéd ‘lives’ of women in advertising photographs, as well as all possible subconscious influences in which the erotic moment comes to the fore.” Finally, we should note an interesting coincidence. “Make up – Make down” was created in the same year when the first international feminist conference “Comrade Woman. Women’s Question – A New Approach?” was held in Belgrade. It was a conference of the so-called second wave of feminism and the first event of its kind in Southeastern and Eastern Europe.
Text: Klaudio Štefančić, senior curator of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Nacionalni muzej moderne umjetnosti, Zagreb
Translated by: Robertina Tomić
Still image from the video: From the National Museum of Modern Art's archives