Joana Vasconcelos

Joana Vasconcelos (born 1971) is a Portuguese sculptor and installation artist known for large-scale works that recontextualise everyday objects and domestic craft techniques. Vasconcelos works at monumental scale in hand-made crochet, embroidery and textiles, in hand-painted azulejo tiles, and in mass-produced domestic objects such as stainless-steel saucepans and plastic cutlery. Her sculptures and immersive environments address the status of women, consumer society, popular devotion and Portuguese national identity, frequently through humour and irony. In 2012 Vasconcelos became the first woman and the youngest artist to be given a solo exhibition at the Palace of Versailles, and in 2013 she represented Portugal at the 55th Venice Biennale with Trafaria Praia, a converted Lisbon ferry that served as the country's first floating pavilion. Her 2018 retrospective I'm Your Mirror at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao made her the first Portuguese artist to hold a solo exhibition at that museum, and she has since shown at the Uffizi, Waddesdon Manor and the Museo Picasso Málaga. She had first come to international attention at the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005 with A Noiva (The Bride), a chandelier whose crystal pendants are replaced by tampons. Vasconcelos runs a large production studio in Lisbon and, since 2012, the Joana Vasconcelos Foundation. Her exhibitions are among the best attended given to a living Portuguese artist, and critical responses to the work have been divided.