The Lia Rumma Gallery in Via Stilicone (Milan) hosted yesterday a double Vanessa Beecroft personal exhibition two events: VB70 and VB MARMI (works in marble). On the ground floor of the gallery, the performance VB70. About ten nude models, body-statues with slow, fragmented movements, performed among marble bases, blocks of uncut stone and new sculptures depicting female bodies, creating a single, striking sculptural group.
“The relationship between the transitory nature of the performance – calibrated yet fleeting – and the polished stillness of the sculptures is the common thread that also runs through the latest events created by Vanessa Beecroft.This turning point in her work is completely consistent with her previous projects which began in 2008 when, in the apse of the Church of the Spasimo in Palermo, 27 models covered in white mingled with 13 plaster casts, giving rise to a stunning tableau vivant imbued with icy pathos. By pursuing this theme in her subsequent works with her customary attention to formal detail, this turning point marks a new formulation of the relationship with the history of art and its infinite wealth of beauty and evocative power.
Beecroft also conducts an acute investigation of the body, beauty and female identity. There is a lurking temptation to strike a celebratory note or to create an atmosphere of rhetorical monumentality due to the preciousness of the materials chosen for the performance. However, this risk is shattered by the painful incompleteness of the fragments, the assembly of the various marble inserts that virtually become a collage, and by the way the sculptures are perched, elegantly yet precariously, on the columns.“
The performance was very strong and a little bit different from Vanessa past works. She lost her way to compose “classic” and balanced composition, and instead she presentend a primitive scenario . The effect was quite disturbing because of the colours used and the disordered disposition of the woman performing.
To complete the event, the upper floors of the gallery contain works in marble, fragments and busts in vivid colours. Sodalite blue, Macaubas sky blue, lapis lazuli, Rosa Portogallo (Portuguese pink marble), Belgian black, Statuary white, green onyx and French red ochre embody the intensity of the variations and chromatic choices with which the artist tinges all her refined backdrops.
A group of sculptures that form part of the project entitled VB MARMI (VB Works in marble) will be presented from 3 June to 27 November at the Venice Biennale in the Tese dei Soppalchi, outside of the Italian Pavilion.
Learn More about the project here.
Riflessioni post: come un armonico gruppo marmoreo le forme nate dal classicismo si colorano di tonalità morbide ed equilibrate, i movimenti fluidi avvolgono l’aria densa di attesa silenziosa e un’atmosfera poco rassicurante riempie i nostri cuori. Improvvisamente una lucida riflessione: la necessità di un ritorno al primordiale, al rapporto mistico, febbrile e animale con la natura. Arrivati all’estrema avanguardia del mondo ci rivolgiamo al passato e rivediamo le nostre origini con un vigore diverso, lo slancio verso la felicità dopo il baratro della società evoluta, dopo essere stati schiacciati dal peso di un’estetica troppo stretta c’è un nuovo l’inizio.
