preformance art Venessa beecroft

Vanessa Beecroft, an Italian artist who lives and works in New York has created a series of performance works which explore issues of nudity and conformity and ultimately hope to invoke an emotional reaction from their audience. In most of her works, groups of women are positioned in a space, dressed scantily or nude. They stand motionless and serious, emotionally detached from their audience. Unable to relate to the women, viewers inherently subject them to an entirely aesthetic based judgement. Thus, the audience are made voyeurs, an uncomfortable realisation which makes them unsure how they are supposed to react and relate to the work. Being that they are other humans within the space, viewers also become a part of the work.
Beecroft has utilised the form of performance art to create provocative artwork. She plays on a human beings natural inclination to relate to other human beings, confusing this instinct with the developed nature in which we view and experience art. What is so original about her performance works is that essentially, her models do not ‘perform’. Their passiveness and lack of motion creates a significant tension within the space they share with the viewer, a climate that could only be founded within the conventions of performance art.