Vanessa Beecroft Says Kanye West Plans to Film His Next Music Video in Mexico
The artist says she scouted the location herself.
Italian-born performance artist Vanessa Beecroft is best-known for her work on the Yeezy Season presentations, as well as Kanye West’s Yeezus tour’s set design. In a recent interview with Art News, the artist explained her relationship with Mr. West and what’s next for the TLOP rapper and his collaborators.
Beecroft sums up Kanye’s creative direction for Season 3 as him telling her “I don’t care, just do whatever you want.” When pressed as to how images of the Rwandan genocide inspired her most-recent performance, Beecroft said: “I wanted to show to America a picture of poverty, of the poor America… My intention was to show the third world that is here.”
Further, she said that the models’ stoic expression and posture is meant to challenge the endurance of both the audience and the models: “Endurance is very important to me; how long can you hold onto that position without entertaining anyone, and just being there? And start to acquire human qualities, and a look that is no longer glamorous, but introspective?”
Finally, Beecroft also hinted that West planned on shooting his next music video (presumably the first from The Life of Pablo) at the site of an ancient Aztec pyramid, somewhere in Mexico, having scouted out the location herself. As far as inspirations for the video, Beecroft cited the work of Italian artist and directer Pier Paolo Pasolini, who intended on making an adaptation of the Oresteia set in Africa back in 1970; however, Beecroft claims that she believes “the new king of Africa will be the African American musician. And I thought, maybe this is something that will happen someday.”
Stay tuned for more on this story as it develops.
