Vanessa Beecroft
VB55 (2005)
Known for an intriguing and contentious use of the female nude as a medium for confrontation, Vanessa Beercroft’s VB55 toys at the edges of empowerment and abjection. In April 2005, one-hundred ordinary women stood as if in military formation, still and solemn inside the Mies van der Rohe-designed Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, a glass box of a building turned vitrine, allowing a curious public to peer inside and at the women. Wearing nothing but flesh-colored nylons and slathered in almond oil, the women are at once mannequins and Aphrodites, girls-next-door and Barbies inside a display case. Their nudity transforms, drawing art historical and pop cultural references from Titian to antiquity to Italian couture. Carefully documented in both video and photography for future exhibition, archiving, and selling, VB55 is an exercise in aesthetics and product, creating material for visual and cultural consumption and enticing its audience to stare.
Posted by: Claudia Matttos