Nauman is undoubtedly a key figure, both in international postwar developments in art and in the S.M.A.K. collection. He might be considered the American counterpart to Joseph Beuys. However, he is above all a loner who provides the link between several diverse trends. He is sometimes counted as part of arte povera, using the term in the broader sense than just the sixties Italian movement of that name, and rather as a collective name for artists who, in their sensitivity to materials, the breadth of their visual idiom and their poetic-symbolic work, formed a counterpoint to the rigidity of Minimal and Conceptual Art. At the same time, one can also see in his work a kinship with Minimal Art, and its strict, intellectual principles are certainly related to Conceptual Art. In this way his work can easily be seen as a bridge between what one might call the ‘European’ and ‘American’ options in contemporary art.