VB 25
Vanessa Beecroft

SALT Beyoğlu, Floor 1

Vanessa Beecroft
Performance (1996)
Duration: 13’

Vanessa Beecroft has been directing performances in the vein of VB 25, all titled VB followed by a number, since 1993. For each performance she selects a number of young women to whom she then assigns similar identities through styling. The women are often dressed in lingerie, designer fashion, or in later works they also appear partially or completely naked. During their performance the girls are instructed not to communicate with each other, or with the public. This lack of interaction makes their presence disorienting: they are simultaneously absent and present. Their identical appearance reinforces the sense that they do not relate to real people.

Performance VB 25 was recorded at the Van Abbemuseum, just before the opening of the exhibition ID in December 1996. The performance continued during the opening. Beecroft’s work is a complex fusion of conceptual issues and aesthetic concerns, usually involving live female models (often nude). Her works attack artistic tradition and social norms, while also dealing with contemporary trends in culture, such as the prevailing ideal of beauty, the influence of high fashion and the cult of body in advertising, without openly criticizing them. Inspired by film, literature and current events, her performances are existential encounters between the models and an audience, the voyeur’s shame and their expectations.