Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos (b. 1971) creates exuberant mixed-media sculptures that foreground and elevate the collective identity of women in art and society. Impress your friends with five fast facts about the artist, whose works are part of NMWA’s collection.
1. Layers of Lace
Vasconcelos’s signature style involves enveloping objects in lace or knitted material, as seen in her work Viriato (2005). The crocheted adornment can be interpreted as a delicate shroud protecting the sculpture underneath. However, the covering may also serve as a trap, confining the subject within a beautiful prison.
2. Assembly Line
Vasconcelos often works with mass-produced, everyday objects, such as stainless steel pots and pans, tampons, ties, and telephones. In these playful works, she addresses themes of gender, consumer culture, and the superficial way we assign worth and beauty to objects.
3. Served with Love
Vasconcelos often works on a monumental scale. Wedding Cake (2023), installed on the grounds of Waddesdon Manor in England, is a three-story, 39-foot-high immersive sculpture covered in 25,000 Portuguese tiles and ceramics. Visitors can explore the work, though its apex only has room for two people, who become the cake’s topper. “I’m inviting you to finish [the work],” Vasconcelos said.
4. Rewriting Herstory
Vasconcelos mixes artistic mediums to challenge ideas of traditionally “feminine” and “masculine” craft. Her sculpture Rubra (2016), a dazzling, large-scale chandelier, is constructed from crocheted wool and yarn, Murano glass, LED lights, ornaments, polyester, and iron. In doing so, the artist melded fiber arts and metalwork, rewriting the narrative of women’s capabilities in art.
5. Party at the Palace
In 2012, Vasconcelos became the first woman and youngest artist to have a major exhibition in the Palace of Versailles. The Palace of Versailles drew 1.6 million visitors, becoming the most visited exhibition in France in 50 years.