Vanessa Beecroft: VB42 Intrepid, The Silent Service

VB42 Intrepid was the culmination of an unprecedented collaboration between Vanessa Beecroft and the US Navy. Beecroft and the US Navy worked together with The Public Art Fund and Deitch Projects to bring this extraordinary live event to the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum in New York City. Vanessa Beecroft’s VB42 Intrepid featured 35 Sailors from The Undersea Warfare Community standing in ceremonial formation on the flight deck of the Intrepid in service dress blues. The event took place in the evening, from 19:30 to 21:00 with New York City’s glowing skyline as a dramatic backdrop. The public was invited onto the Intrepid’s famous flight deck to experience Beecroft’s live portrait of the US Navy.

Vanessa Beecroft, born in Italy and residing in New York City, earned an international reputation as one of contemporary art’s most innovative young artists. She is known for her stunning live portraits of groups of people. Vanessa Beecroft’s VB42 Intrepid was her second project in a series devoted to capturing a portrait of the US Navy. Following her internationally-acclaimed US Navy SEALs project presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego in June of 1999, Beecroft brought her work with the military to New York. VB42 Intrepid honored the US Navy’s Undersea Warfare Community on the occasion of the submarine’s centennial anniversary that year. The Navy selected 35 of the finest Sailors from The Undersea Warfare Community to be part of Beecroft’s event. The live portrait represented an intersection of military rules and aesthetics with those of the world of art.

An additional element of this project was “a museum within a museum,” a reproduction on-board the Intrepid of the UDT-SEAL Museum located in Fort Pierce, FL. Curated by Vanessa Beecroft and produced by Deitch Projects, this exhibition project featured film and photographs of objects from the UDT-SEAL Museum collection, which were projected inside a scaled-down inflatable reproduction of the UDT-SEAL Museum building. The UDT-SEAL Museum collection included a Vanessa Beecroft US Navy SEAL project photograph.