At Wilding Cran downtown, Vanessa Beecroft’s exhibition celebrates the female form. Across ceramic, bronze, and plaster sculptures and paintings on canvas, Beecroft’s figures bend, lounge, and twist. In some cases, the figures’ heads are absent or overly simplified, so the focus instead seems to be on the specific physical energy of each form. Some feel stiff and formal as if they’re posing for a portrait, while others slump their shoulders playfully or twist in dancerly movements. In “(Untitled) Purple Figure,” a female form bends in half as if trying to scrunch her whole body within the bounds of the horizontal canvas.
Many of Beecroft’s sculptural works, by contrast, consist only of heads, some sitting on wooden pedestals, others on the floor. They feel disembodied — centering more on the cerebral identity of each subject rather than an embodied gravitas. The two bodies of work complement and contrast each other, together forming evocative portraits of the female form.
Many of Beecroft’s sculptural works, by contrast, consist only of heads, some sitting on wooden pedestals, others on the floor. They feel disembodied — centering more on the cerebral identity of each subject rather than an embodied gravitas. The two bodies of work complement and contrast each other, together forming evocative portraits of the female form.