Q&A with Vanessa Beecroft of 'The Art Star and Sudanese Twins'

International performance art superstar Vanessa Beecroft knows full well what it's like to put other people on the spot. Her celebrated, controversial pieces usually involve dozens of naked women dressed in designer pumps and accessorized in wigs or body paint, standing or lolling in place for hours under the blank stares of art world spectators who never stop swigging Champagne.

In filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly's feature documentary about Beecroft, "The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins," which premiered in competition here last week, Beecroft precisely explains the physical and mental metamorphosis she is looking for her models to undergo in such performances: "Standing there for hours, they go from beautiful to miserable to exhausted. The melancholy and the uncertainty and embarrassment is what I look for."

The artist herself completes a similar transformation in the film, which follows 16 months of her life as she attempts to adopt a pair of twins from war-torn Sudan. But in Beecroft's way are government red tape (Sudan has no established adoption laws), the twins' suspicious relatives (who wrench the boys from her arms in one scene), her husband (who is unaware she is even thinking about adoption) and her own powerful self-absorption.

In the film, Beecroft brings up her own impulses toward racism, post-colonialism and Third World exploitation, dangling them in the air without ever directly dealing with the issues. The result is a less than flattering portrait of the artist as a prospective mother.

Warming herself by the Yarrow Hotel's enormous fireplace, however, Beecroft (who was raised in Italy and currently resides in Los Angeles) appeared glamorous and relaxed, at peace with her portrayal in "Art Star" -- even if she stopped just short of saying the movie has her pegged all wrong.

Click through below for a Q&A with the Los Angeles Times' Chris Lee.

Q: In your artwork, you orchestrate the action. How difficult a decision was it for you to agree to be a movie subject?

A: I am quite aggressive about that kind of thing myself. If I see you and I want to photograph you, I will do anything to get you. Petra is like that too. She really pursued me because she couldn't believe I was where I was, in this NGO camp in the middle of the Sudan. I thought, "This woman has a certain intuition." So it wasn't a difficult decision.

Q: Did you do some homework about her first?

A: I Googled her, but not really. When she told me she was a journalist and a documentary maker, I trusted her. Now when I see the movie, it's moving, and yet, for me, it's light.

Q: You mean it misses the point?

A: There were so many moments when I had really profound sociopolitical and racial thoughts going on that are not really represented in the film because this was about me going on a journey.

Q: So does it distort what you went through?

A: I respect Petra's work. There were certain messages that need to be told. I'm fine. I have no criticism. I feel I'm represented more in my performing moments and the story -- I felt there is a part missing where I am sponsoring a Sudanese student of philosophy and working on my own documentary.

Q: What made you want to adopt those twins so badly?

A: When I realized there was a genocide, I went there not knowing if I would find a connection to my work or not. I thought, once I mother these children, I will be even more committed and involved. In the movie, [my husband] Greg says I always wanted a lot of children because I wanted a lot of people around me. I never thought about that. I just felt an incredible connection to these people and wanted to feel closer to them. I even did one of those DNA tests where you can find out your ethnic origins to see if I had any African blood. It turns out I have some Southeast Asian blood!

Q: Your husband also derisively suggests you might have been inspired to adopt African children after reading about how Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and Madonna had done it.

A: Angelina adopted her children in June 2006 and Madonna in June 2007. What happened to me was in November 2005. It was zeitgeist. The spirit of time. I believe in this. When I saw Angelina and Madonna, I thought, what is going on in the world? Why are women drawn to Africa? I was really interested. I identify with them on a maternal level. They wanted these children and I did too.

Q: The movie suggests you found a level of your humanity in the Sudan, that your adoption process resulted in a professional and personal breakthrough. Is that the takeaway?

A: The cultural elite in the United States has not fully accepted and are not able to trust me. They would see the girls naked in these high heels and think that's who I am and those are my values. It was this little fight between me and the audience -- me making the audience feel guilty for the girls being naked and exploited. All of a sudden, they see the person who made it is human and vulnerable. I'm happy about that.

Q: There's a moment in the movie where you explain you are looking for your models to be exhausted, succumbing to the stress of standing there naked. How do you feel about that having happened to you?

A: I kind of like it in a karma sense: Look what you got yourself into. With my work, I control groups of women that are aliases for me. They are naked, cold, told not to move -- not to do anything. They represent me. This time, I allowed someone else to do that.

Q: Did you know much about Sundance before you got here?

A: Not really. I know European festivals. I'm not sure what comes out of it and what kind of reading Americans do.

Q: So why did you come?

A: I wasn't coming. As much as I wouldn't invite the girls in my performances to my screening, I felt I didn't really need to be here. I thought it was kind of egocentric to come. But then Petra advised me to come. But I'm a little bit embarrassed of being here. I feel it's a bit presumptuous after all those hours of me talking in that documentary, I couldn't hear another minute!

-- Chris Lee

Photos: Top, Artist Vanessa Beecroft from the film "The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins" poses for a portrait at the Miners Club during the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 18 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Frank Micelotta/Getty Images)