Joana Vasconcelos

Joana Vasconcelos (Paris, France 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 Ricardo Espírito Santo Silva Foundation, and her grandmother was a painter. At the age of three, she returned to Portugal with her family after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. She graduated from the António Arroio School of Decorative Arts and the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, and also studied at Ar.Co, where she received support from Delfim Sardo e Castro Caldas. She lives and works in Lisbon.

Joana Vasconcelos has developed an artistic practice based on the transformation of everyday objects into works of strong visual and conceptual impact. Her approach involves the appropriation, decontextualization, and subversion of preexisting objects, combining sculptures, installations, performance, video, and photographs. 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 artisanal/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 participated in the Echigo Tsumari Triennial in Japan, and in 2008, she exhibited "Contaminação" (Contamination) at the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo in Brazil. In 2009, she participated in the group exhibition "Un Certain État du Monde?" (Un Certain État du Monde?). at the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, and received the Order of Prince Henry. In 2010, he held the major anthology "Sem Rede" at the Berardo Collection Museum, the most visited exhibition in Portugal to date. In 2011, he presented the work "Contaminação de Vacas" at the exhibition "O Mundo Pertence a Você" (The World Belongs to You) at Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

Joana Vasconcelos became the first woman and youngest artist to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles in 2012, at the invitation of the institution's president, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, in an exhibition that attracted the largest number of visitors in the last 50 years. She represented Portugal at the 2013 Venice Biennale with the floating installation Trafaria Praia, an art gallery on a moored boat. In 2013, she also opened a new exhibition in Portugal at the Palácio Nacional da Ajuda in Lisbon.

In 2018, Joana Vasconcelos held the retrospective "I Am Your Mirror" at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, becoming the only Portuguese artist to exhibit solo at the museum, with 30 works spanning approximately 25 years of her career. In 2020, she presented Valkyrie Mumbet at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Museum in Boston, her first solo exhibition in the United States, honoring the formerly enslaved Elizabeth Mumbet Freeman. In 2024, she exhibited Valkyrie Mumbet and Tree of Life, the latter composed of 110,000 hand-sewn sheets of fabric, 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, Museu Coleção Berardo
2012 – Versailles, France – Valquíria Real, 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, Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (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 – Contamination, Octagon Project of Contemporary Art, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
2008 – Paris, France – Where Black Is Color, 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, Calouste Gulbenkian Cultural Centre
2009 – Budapest, Hungary – Mi Vida – Heaven and Hell, Mücsarnok Kunsthalle
2011 – Odense, Denmark – Magic Kingdom, Kunsthallen Brandts
2011 – Venice, Italy – The World Belongs to You, Palazzo Grassi
2011 – Lisbon, Portugal – Res Publica, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Centenary of the Republic
2012 – Versailles, France – Royal Valkyrie, Château de Versailles