Vanessa Beecroft

In 2019, she collaborated with West on two opera-based performances, Nebuchadnezzar and Mary.

Beecroft’s failed attempt to adopt Sudanese twins was the topic of the documentary The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins (2008) by Pietra Brettkelly, which was included in the Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Documentary Competition. The film presents Beecroft as a "hypocritically self-aware, colossally colonial pomo narcissist" and chronicles her "damaging quotes and appalling behavior" as she attempts to adopt the orphans for use in an art exhibit.

In 2018, Beecroft and Kim Kardashian collaborated on a series of nude photos of Kardashian that were displayed on social media for the release of Kardashian's perfume, which had a "Kardashian body-shaped bottle".

Beecroft alleged she was a full-time employee for West until 2016, when her role changed and she became a part-time contractor.

Beecroft has been quoted in an interview in 2016, “I have divided my personality. There is Vanessa Beecroft as a European white female, and then there is Vanessa Beecroft as Kanye, an African-American male.” Her later work deals with race, and she has made a series of racially insensitive remarks in interviews.

In February 2015, West embarked on a fashion design career with Yeezy Season 1, under the Adidas label and Beecroft directed the performance presentation. Beecroft went on to work on Yeezy Season 2 (September 2015), Yeezy Season 3 (February 2016), and Yeezy Season 4 (September 2016).

Since 2008, Beecroft has been collaborating on work with artist Kanye West. They began working together with a listening party at Ace Gallery, Los Angeles for West's music albums 808s and Heartbreaks. In 2010, Beecroft was named creative lead for the Runaway music video. On the Kanye West music tour, the Yeezus Tour (October 2013 – September 2014), Beecroft designed the sets and choreography. Beecroft worked on West's Spike Joze directed music video for the 2014 song “Only One”. During the wedding ceremony of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West in 2014, Beecroft displayed her sculptures.

In October 2005, Beecroft staged a three-hour performance on the occasion of the opening of the Louis Vuitton store, "Espace Louis Vuitton" on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. For the same event, Beecroft placed models both black and white on the shelves next to Louis Vuitton bags in a "human alphabet". In 2007 the Louis Vuitton company apologized to Dutch graphic designer Anthon Beeke for mimicking his "Naked Ladies Alphabet" design without his consent.

Vanessa Beecroft was previously married to marketer Greg Durkin. They lived in Cold Spring Harbor, New York together for many years. The marriage ended in divorce. Durkin and Beecroft had two sons together (born in 2001 and 2004). She is currently married to photographer Federico Spadoni. Beecroft and Spadoni have one daughter and one son together (born 2009 and 2012).

Many of the VB performances were documented in the Dave Hickey book VB 08-36: Vanessa Beecroft Performances (2000), and in Emily L. Newman's book Female Body Image in Contemporary Art: Dieting, Eating Disorders, Self-Harm, and Fatness (2018).

She moved to the United States in 1996 at the invitation of art dealer Jeffrey Deitch, settling in New York City.

From 1988 to 1993 she attended Brera Academy in Milan, Italy. Her first art exhibition VB01 (1993) was in a gallery in Milan and featured a performance with other female students from Brera Academy wearing Beecroft's clothing, and sharing Beecroft's "Book of Food", a diary documenting her food consumption from 1985 and 1993. The "Book of Food" documented Beecroft's bulimic eating habits and was referenced again in her later work, but it was separate from the performances.

Vanessa Beecroft (born April 25, 1969) is an Italian-born American contemporary performance artist; she also works with photography, video art, sculpture, and painting. Many of her works have made use of professional models, sometimes in large numbers and sometimes naked or nearly so, to stage tableaux vivants. She works in the United States, and is based in Los Angeles as of 2019. Her early work was focused on gender and appeared to be autobiographical; her later work is focused on race. Starting in 2008 she began working with Kanye West on collaborations and commercial projects.

Vanessa Beecroft was born April 25, 1969 in Genoa, Italy and raised in Santa Margherita Ligure and Malcesine near Lake Garda. Both of her parents were teachers; she was born to an Italian mother (Maria Luisa) and a British father (Andrew). After she was born, her family briefly moved to Holland Park, west London.