Art Basel Miami: Saint Laurent presents its collaboration with artist Vanessa Beecroft

After giving carte blanche to the Japanese photographer Daido Moriyama whose 77 images were shown in the gardens of the Palais Royal last November, Anthony Vaccarello has invited the American artist Vanessa Beecroft to reinterpret the spirit of Saint Laurent for the Self project. Chosen by Anthony Vaccarello, artistic director of the French house, for their iconoclastic and contemporary visions, the different artists, photographers and film makers of the Self project are invited to reinterpret the spirit of Saint Laurent with complete freedom. 

Originally from Italy, the American performance art star, adored by Kanye West which whom she collaborates since 2008, quickly established her place in the closed world of contemporary art thanks to her installations that question nude female body and the status of women, as an object of desire and repulsion. Bringing together dozens of women, often in a state of undress, the 50-plus performances by Vanessa Beecroft are often very similar to one another; and place the spectator as a voyeur caught up in an act of quasi-espionage. “This state of passivity is very easy for them; they’ve been well trained to behave like that throughout their lives,” told the artist to Numéro magazine. For the last few years she’s been nourishing a veritable passion for the world of fashion and she features numerous designers in her performance as Prada, Tom Ford, Helmut Lang, and Dolce & Gabbana.

Photographed at the highly memorable spring-summer 2019 runway show held in Paris and during which the models walked over a thin layer of water illuminated by the Eiffel Tower, the images of Vanessa Beecroft’s performance for Saint Laurent will be exhibited between the 1st and 15th December during Miami Art Basel at the Museum Garage and the Paradise Plaza.