Isabella Benshimol on Performance, Plasticity, and Consumer Critique

In an interview with Progetto /77, Venezuelan artist Isabella Benshimol (b. 1994, Caracas) discusses her video and performance practice, which explores desire, the body, and artificiality through sterile environments. Her 2016 video "Whale vomit can make you rich" critiques consumerism and wealth, using a jacuzzi and sushi to evoke cannibalism and necrophilia. The work references the Venezuelan avant-garde movement El Techo de la Ballena, which rejected geometric abstraction and aimed to transform society during the 1960s political turmoil. Benshimol engages with "dead plasticity," the transformation of organic matter into artificial physicality, and creates a paradoxical space where perfection and emptiness coexist. She balances socio-political analysis with a glossy, hyper-aestheticized visual language, using small disruptive gestures to unsettle viewers. The interview is part of the /77 collective's series, featuring artists Giulia Ratti, Alessandro Moroni, Nicole Colombo, and Luca Loreti.