Art Basel’s Naked Performance Artist Milo Moiré Strikes Again

Performance artist Milo Moire holds up a poster reading "Respect us! We are no fair game, even when we are naked!!!" as she stands near Cologne's landmark, the Cologne Cathedral, to protest on January 8, 2016 against offenses against women that happened in Cologne on New Year's Eve. OLIVER BERG/AFP/Getty Images.

Swiss performance artist Milo Moiré took her kit off once again, Metro reports. This time, she walked around naked and holding a baby at the closing party for The Naked Life, an exhibition at LWL Museum of Art and Culture in Münster, Germany.

The exhibition featured works by British artists from Francis Bacon to David Hockney, celebrating the human form.

According to a statement on the artist’s website, the performance, entitled How Much Abstraction Can Art Tolerate? (2015), sought to challenge “the fundamental attitudes towards abstract and figurative art.” It also states “Milo and the baby looked at the nudes in the exhibition and, because of their own nakedness, became part of it.”

The statement went on to explain that “In keeping with the approach of the artists exhibited, Milo Moiré brings everyday life to art. And yet, she goes one step further in removing herself from the abstract form of representation and shows her main motif of the naked life: A naked infant safe in the arms of a naked woman.”

Moiré’s performance provoked mixed reactions from museum goers. Anke Lange, 30, told the Daily Mirror, “I’m all for expression and alternatives in art, but this was just ridiculous.” Tobias Meyer, 45, was more upbeat. He said, “I must admit it was more interesting than the average art exhibition.”

Moiré has previously attracted attention for her PlopEgg Painting Performance #1 at art Cologne last year where she publicly squeezed paint-filled eggs out of her, well, you know where, and onto a canvas (see “Eggcellent Nude Performance Art”). Back in June, at Art Basel in Basel, she was refused entry as a performing artist, but not because of nudity. In fact, it was because her performance was not included in the fair’s program (see “Art Basel Turns Away Nude Performance Artist”).


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