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Monday, April 11, 2005
100 Naked Girls = Art (I Guess...)
I was aware of group nudity performances - something like that occured in Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis - but never attached an actual creator to such events. Apparently, there's at least one conceptual artist who's defining motif is mass nudity, as Vanessa Beecroft's latest art installation of naked women is being staged in Berlin. It's called VB55, indicating her 55th such work, and she describes it as such:
Beecroft then admits to being embarassed about her work, as well.
While this sounds conceptually sound - maybe - it does hinge on a specific kind of reaction and at least some shock effect. If you had a hundred women waiting nude in a nudist camp - perhaps to fill out forms or something - would someone walking by be ashamed by this? What if that passerby was also nude? What if the person, in a show of solidarity, decides to join the group? Would it matter if it was a man or a woman? If the concept is about violence and abuse, isn't what Beecroft doing to her "girls" (the term she uses) at least mildly abusive, as well? Where is the complicity, and how does one separate complicity from commentary (one of the bigger knots of art, especially performance art, I know, but I still had to ask)?
And as for whether or not this is art... Not everyone thinks this is good art, at least - and not solely for moral reasons. There are those who have no misgivings about public nudity who just find her work insignificant. Others think she's a major feminist oice. Considering that Beecroft's plan is to get a whole bunch of women naked, rub almond oil on them to make their breasts shinier, then make them stand looking bored and dull for several hours... well, it does seem questionable, at the very least. It would make more sense - be more coherent a statement - as a sociological experiment than a work of performance art.
This intersection of art sex commerce (the VB exhibits have videos which are sold by art dealers, and the videos include close-ups) is something I've been thinking about a great deal for years now. Usually I'm concerned by the sex-commerce part of things with art as a kind of intrusion. This example is a more balanced triangle, perhaps... but a remarkably sterile one.
"I want the women to be slightly hypnotised, so they appear removed and detached from the audience," she says. "It's not a concept that can be easily explained. I would say it includes embarrassment, shame, violence and abuse. There is a feeling of embarrassment, no matter if the viewer is a man or a woman."
Beecroft then admits to being embarassed about her work, as well.
While this sounds conceptually sound - maybe - it does hinge on a specific kind of reaction and at least some shock effect. If you had a hundred women waiting nude in a nudist camp - perhaps to fill out forms or something - would someone walking by be ashamed by this? What if that passerby was also nude? What if the person, in a show of solidarity, decides to join the group? Would it matter if it was a man or a woman? If the concept is about violence and abuse, isn't what Beecroft doing to her "girls" (the term she uses) at least mildly abusive, as well? Where is the complicity, and how does one separate complicity from commentary (one of the bigger knots of art, especially performance art, I know, but I still had to ask)?
And as for whether or not this is art... Not everyone thinks this is good art, at least - and not solely for moral reasons. There are those who have no misgivings about public nudity who just find her work insignificant. Others think she's a major feminist oice. Considering that Beecroft's plan is to get a whole bunch of women naked, rub almond oil on them to make their breasts shinier, then make them stand looking bored and dull for several hours... well, it does seem questionable, at the very least. It would make more sense - be more coherent a statement - as a sociological experiment than a work of performance art.
This intersection of art sex commerce (the VB exhibits have videos which are sold by art dealers, and the videos include close-ups) is something I've been thinking about a great deal for years now. Usually I'm concerned by the sex-commerce part of things with art as a kind of intrusion. This example is a more balanced triangle, perhaps... but a remarkably sterile one.
