October 12, 2023
Vanessa Beecroft
Rules of Non-Engagement
Jeffrey Deitch
September 8 - October 21, 2023
Vanessa Beecroft
When she first emerged in the 1990s viewers found Vanessa Beecroft's practice so intereting— not only the participatory nature of her performances and the odd directives given to her performers, but also for the way she handled their nakedness. Fascinated by the nude models hired for drawing classes while in art school in Milan, she came to the realization that their actual bodies were more compelling than the drawings she produced, so she began to conceptualize performances with them. In 1996 when renowned dealer Jeffrey Deitch opened his New York gallery, it was with one of her performances. Now on view in his Los Angeles space is a thirty-year survey of Beecroft's work.
Printed large on the wall in all caps are sentences from Beecroft's "Rules of Non-Engagement" that include these statements: "Do Not Talk, Do Not Interact With Anyone, Do Not Whisper, Do Not Smile, Do Not Laugh, Do Not Move Theatrically, Do Not Move Too Fast, Do Not Move Too Slow, Be Natural, Be Detached." This large-scale wall text describes how her performers were told to act. Viewers can see these statements in action on a wall-sized projection that cycles through a selection of Beecroft's US and Europe based performances from 1996 - 2010. Seeing the documentation is a reminder of how radical and unsettling these stunning and strange pieces were when they first appeared. Though nudity and sexuality have a long history in performance art, Beecroft objectified her models who were often made to stand together en masse in huge empty spaces, sometimes barefoot, other times wearing only colored high heel shoes. These works are evocative and campy simultaneously.
Watching the clips of the eight performances adds up to just over three hours, more time than most viewers spend in a gallery, but seeing this footage (or even just snippets of it) informs the rest of the work on view. Over the last year, Beecroft has focused on painting and has transformed photographs from many of her performances into large scale oil on canvas works. Numerous paintings fill the vast gallery space in addition to recent ceramic sculptures — some heads and busts, others full figures.
Translating the relationships between performance and painting becomes an underlying subject of this exhibition. For example, one of the things that is the most eye-catching in performance VB43, Vanessa Beecroft Performance, 2000 Gagosian Gallery, London is the wild and brightly colored hair on some of the models. Beecroft exaggerates this in the painting Untitled (VB43), Gagosian Gallery, London, (all paintings 2023) leveling the flesh tones so the different models' red and orange hair becomes the focal point. The paintings that encapsulate but also enhance the performances are the most interesting and the least like amateur nude studies. In both Untitled (VB46), Gagosian Gallery 2001 and Untitled (VB50), San Paulo Biennial, Brazil, Beecroft darkens the background and in Untitled (VB50), San Paulo Biennial, Brazil, she even depicts bodies in blues and greens.
While some of the performers enact classical positions like contrapposto, most stand inert and blank and it is this calm aura of banality that Beecroft brings to the canvases. Her painting style is casually realistic, but with more than 30 paintings on view, the sketchy quality suffices to convey the gist of the performance. The paintings are less about reproducing bodies in exacting detail, than about transforming these excerpts and cropped moments into painted commodities. In addition to painting scenes from the performances, Beecroft also includes a number of portraits as well as ceramic heads and busts. Stunningly installed in the back gallery, alongside an expansive wall mounted plaster cast of disparate bodies, the oversized ceramic heads in contrast to the life-sized busts assert a different physical presence that is more abstract and interpretative.
Beecroft is a versatile and ambitious artist who is skilled in a wide range of materials. She is unabashed in her use of excess and abundance and this is the take away from the exhibition. In this case however, more is not better as it dilutes what could otherwise be a powerful presentation of female forms and interactions.
Rules of Non-Engagement
Jeffrey Deitch
September 8 - October 21, 2023
Vanessa Beecroft
When she first emerged in the 1990s viewers found Vanessa Beecroft's practice so intereting— not only the participatory nature of her performances and the odd directives given to her performers, but also for the way she handled their nakedness. Fascinated by the nude models hired for drawing classes while in art school in Milan, she came to the realization that their actual bodies were more compelling than the drawings she produced, so she began to conceptualize performances with them. In 1996 when renowned dealer Jeffrey Deitch opened his New York gallery, it was with one of her performances. Now on view in his Los Angeles space is a thirty-year survey of Beecroft's work.
Printed large on the wall in all caps are sentences from Beecroft's "Rules of Non-Engagement" that include these statements: "Do Not Talk, Do Not Interact With Anyone, Do Not Whisper, Do Not Smile, Do Not Laugh, Do Not Move Theatrically, Do Not Move Too Fast, Do Not Move Too Slow, Be Natural, Be Detached." This large-scale wall text describes how her performers were told to act. Viewers can see these statements in action on a wall-sized projection that cycles through a selection of Beecroft's US and Europe based performances from 1996 - 2010. Seeing the documentation is a reminder of how radical and unsettling these stunning and strange pieces were when they first appeared. Though nudity and sexuality have a long history in performance art, Beecroft objectified her models who were often made to stand together en masse in huge empty spaces, sometimes barefoot, other times wearing only colored high heel shoes. These works are evocative and campy simultaneously.
Watching the clips of the eight performances adds up to just over three hours, more time than most viewers spend in a gallery, but seeing this footage (or even just snippets of it) informs the rest of the work on view. Over the last year, Beecroft has focused on painting and has transformed photographs from many of her performances into large scale oil on canvas works. Numerous paintings fill the vast gallery space in addition to recent ceramic sculptures — some heads and busts, others full figures.
Translating the relationships between performance and painting becomes an underlying subject of this exhibition. For example, one of the things that is the most eye-catching in performance VB43, Vanessa Beecroft Performance, 2000 Gagosian Gallery, London is the wild and brightly colored hair on some of the models. Beecroft exaggerates this in the painting Untitled (VB43), Gagosian Gallery, London, (all paintings 2023) leveling the flesh tones so the different models' red and orange hair becomes the focal point. The paintings that encapsulate but also enhance the performances are the most interesting and the least like amateur nude studies. In both Untitled (VB46), Gagosian Gallery 2001 and Untitled (VB50), San Paulo Biennial, Brazil, Beecroft darkens the background and in Untitled (VB50), San Paulo Biennial, Brazil, she even depicts bodies in blues and greens.
While some of the performers enact classical positions like contrapposto, most stand inert and blank and it is this calm aura of banality that Beecroft brings to the canvases. Her painting style is casually realistic, but with more than 30 paintings on view, the sketchy quality suffices to convey the gist of the performance. The paintings are less about reproducing bodies in exacting detail, than about transforming these excerpts and cropped moments into painted commodities. In addition to painting scenes from the performances, Beecroft also includes a number of portraits as well as ceramic heads and busts. Stunningly installed in the back gallery, alongside an expansive wall mounted plaster cast of disparate bodies, the oversized ceramic heads in contrast to the life-sized busts assert a different physical presence that is more abstract and interpretative.
Beecroft is a versatile and ambitious artist who is skilled in a wide range of materials. She is unabashed in her use of excess and abundance and this is the take away from the exhibition. In this case however, more is not better as it dilutes what could otherwise be a powerful presentation of female forms and interactions.