Joana Vasconcelos (Paris, França 1971)
Joana Vasconcelos is a Portuguese visual artist (Joana Baptista Vasconcelos, ComIH) known for her large-scale sculptures and installations. She was born on November 8, 1971, in Paris, France, to Portuguese parents. Her father was a photographer, her mother studied at the Fundação Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva and her grandmother was a painter. At the age of three she returned to Portugal with her family after the Carnation Revolution of 1974. She studied at the Escola de Artes Decorativas António Arroio and the Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa, and also at Ar.Co, where she received support from Delfim Sardo and Castro Caldas. She lives and works in Lisbon.
Joana Vasconcelos has developed an artistic practice based on transforming everyday objects into works of strong visual and conceptual impact. Her approach involves the appropriation, decontextualization and subversion of preexisting objects, combining sculpture, installation, performance, video and photographic records. She uses materials such as textiles, ceramics, plastics and metals, incorporating traditional Portuguese techniques such as embroidery and tilework into a contemporary language. She addresses themes such as femininity, identity, tradition, modernity, class differences and national identity, balancing dichotomies between handmade/industrial, private/public and popular/erudite culture.
In 2005 Joana Vasconcelos presented the installation A Noiva [The Bride] at the Venice Biennale, made with more than 14,000 tampons. In 2006 she took part in the Echigo-Tsumari Triennale in Japan, and in 2008 she showed Contaminação [Contamination] at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil. In 2009 she took part in the group exhibition Un Certain État du Monde? at the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow and received the Order of Prince Henry. In 2010 she held the major anthological exhibition Sem Rede [Without a Net] at the Museu Coleção Berardo, the most visited exhibition in Portugal up to then. In 2011 she presented the work Contaminação de Vacas [Cow Contamination] in the exhibition The World Belongs to You at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
In 2012 Joana Vasconcelos became the first woman and the youngest artist to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles, at the invitation of its president, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, in an exhibition that drew the largest number of visitors of the previous 50 years. She represented Portugal at the 2013 Venice Biennale with the floating installation Trafaria Praia, an art gallery on a moored boat. Also in 2013 she opened a new exhibition in Portugal at the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda in Lisbon.
In 2018 Joana Vasconcelos held the retrospective I'm Your Mirror at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the only Portuguese artist to have a solo exhibition at the museum, with 30 works covering some 25 years of her career. In 2020 she presented Valkyrie Mumbet at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Art Museum in Boston, her first solo exhibition in the United States, paying tribute to the formerly enslaved Elizabeth Mumbet Freeman. In 2024 she showed Valkyrie Mumbet and Tree of Life, the latter made of 110,000 hand-sewn fabric leaves, at the opening of the Malta International Contemporary Arts Space (MICAS).
Solo Exhibitions
2005 - Venice, Italy - Always a Little Deeper, Arsenale, Venice Biennale
2010 - London, United Kingdom - I Will Survive, Haunch of Venison
2010 - Lisbon, Portugal - Sem Rede [Without a Net], Museu Coleção Berardo
2012 - Versailles, France - Valquíria Real [Royal Valkyrie], Château de Versailles
2013 - Venice, Italy - Trafaria Praia, Portuguese Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale
2018 - Bilbao, Spain - I'm Your Mirror, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
2020 - Boston, United States - Valkyrie Mumbet, MassArt Art Museum, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
2023 - Lisbon, Portugal - Plug-in, Museu de Arte, Arquitetura e Tecnologia (MAAT), Belém
Group Exhibitions
2006 - Tokamachi, Japan - Echigo Tsumari Triennial
2006 - Istanbul, Turkey - Venice–Istanbul, Istanbul Modern
2006 - Barcelona, Spain - Espais Oberts, CaixaForum, Fundación La Caixa
2008 - São Paulo, Brazil - Contaminação [Contamination], Projeto Octógono de Arte Contemporânea, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
2008 - Paris, France - Où le Noir Est Couleur, Galerie Nathalie Obadia
2008 - Paris, France - L’Argent, Le Plateau
2009 - Moscow, Russia - Un Certain État du Monde?, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture
2009 - Paris, France - À la Mode de Chez Nous: Júlio Pomar et Joana Vasconcelos, Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian
2009 - Budapest, Hungary - Mi Vida - Heaven and Hell, Műcsarnok Kunsthalle
2011 - Odense, Denmark - Magic Kingdom, Kunsthallen Brandts
2011 - Venice, Italy - The World Belongs to You, Palazzo Grassi
2011 - Lisbon, Portugal - Res Publica, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Centenary of the Republic
2012 - Versailles, France - Royal Valkyrie, Château de Versailles
