Joana Vasconcelos

 

http://www.joanavasconcelos.com/ 

Born in Paris in 1971.  Lives and works in Lisbon.  

Artist Statement

The site-specific interventions in the public art domain assume special relevance in the artist's work.  Some of Joana Vasconcelos' most important public art interventions are: La Theiere, Le Royal Monceau, Paris (2010); Sr.Vinho, Mercado Municipal de Torres Vedras, Torres Vedras (2010); Jardim Bordallo Pinheiro, Jadim do Museu da Cidade, Lisbon (2008); Vitrine, Rua do Alecrim, no. 12, Lisbon (2008); Varina, Ponte D. Luis I, Porto (2008); The Jewel of the Tagus, Tower of Belem, Lisbon (2008); Donzela, Castelo de Santa Maria da Feira, Santa Maria da Feira (2007); Cactus, Forum Almada, Almada (2002).

The nature of Joana Vasconcelos' creative process is based on the appropriation, decontectualisation and subversion of pre-existent objects and everyday realities.  Sculptures and installations, which are revealing of an acute sense of scale and mastery of colour, as well as the recourse to performances and video or photographic records, all combine in the materialization of concepts which challenge the pre-arranged routines of the quotidian.  Starting out from ingenious operations of displacement, a reminiscence of the Ready-Made and the grammars of Nouveau Realisme and Pop, the artist offers us a complicit vision, but one which is at the same time critical of contemporary society and several features which serve the enunciations of collective identity, especially those that concern the status of women, class distinction or national identity.  From this process there derives a speech which is attentive to comtemporary idiosyncrasies, where the usual dichotomies of hand-crafted/industrial, private/public, tradition/modernity and popular culture/erudite culture are imbued with affinities that are apt to renovate the usual fluxes of signification which are characteristics of contemporaneity.