Saturday, December 8, 2007

Vanessa Beecroft's VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf?


Photo courtesy blogs.arte.tv

Whew! I heaved a sigh of relief when I heard they got the teddybear-Mohammed-naming rabble-rousing English teacher off the streets of Sudan. Really. Now the world is much safer.
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Sudan, what a tolerant country.
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Artist Vanessa Beecroft gave a shout out to Sudan when she created a performance at the opening of the Venice Biennale this past June.
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Her piece titled, VB61 Still Death! Darfur Still Deaf? involved 30 Sudanese women darkened with makeup lying prone on a white canvas. Over a 3 hour period, the artist poured blood-red paint on and around the deathlike immobile women, both referencing Viennese Actionism and Sudan's wonderful treatment at Darfur.
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Here's a video of the live performance:
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My first reaction was cynical to this work as I thought it was a bit gratuitous, but upon subsequent viewing I find it extremely moving. The performance also moves from a solitary artist's position to a very public work about the world shared by the Sudanese performers and the audience. The work suddenly shifts from micro to macro in an alarming instant, like a tsunami.

1 comment:

Cristina Motta said...



Déjà vu..!!!!..Yves Klein in 1960.