Vanessa Beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft was born on April 25, 1969. She is an Italian contemporary artist and currently lives in Los Angeles. Her work is mostly comprised of large-scale performance art. She usually uses live female models that are often nude. Her work can be described as close to a Renaissance painting and in between a performance and documentary. Her performances are made for specific locations and have references, which are political, historical, etc. The women in her performances were often nude and were similar to each other through details such as hair color or identical shoes. In her more recent works her models are clothed and take on a more theatrical approach in the performances.

One of Beecroft’s works that I was particularly interested in is VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? This performance involved thirty Sudanese women and lasted three hours. Thirty Sudanese women lied facedown on a white canvas. They positioned their bodies to look as if they were dead bodies piled on top of one another. The bodies were darkened with make-up and the women’s bodies were covered with a red stroke of paint. The women stayed motionless and kept their eyes shut. This work was really thought provoking to me because Beecroft was showing the death that is going on in Darfur. I liked how she made the models look dark and then used a bold red color that emulated blood.