Joana Vasconcelos

Born in 1971, Joana Vasconcelos is a contemporary visual artist renowned for her monumental sculptures, whose 25 years practise stretches to drawing and film. She updates the arts & crafts concept to the 21st century and incorporates everyday objects with irony and humour, creating a bridge between domestic environment and public space while questioning the status of women, consumerism society and collective identity.

International acclaim came at the first Venice Biennale ever curated by women with The Bride in 2005, followed by Trafaria Praia, the first floating pavilion in the biennale representing Portugal in 2013. The youngest artist and the only woman ever at Palace of Versailles, to a record breaking 1.6 million visitors, her 2012 exhibition was the most visited in France in 50 years. In 2018, Vasconcelos became the first Portuguese to exhibit at Guggenheim Bilbao with a major retrospective, which was one of the most visited in the museum’s history and reached 4^th place in The Art Newspaper’s annual exhibitions’ Top 10. Beyond, her biggest show so far in the UK, continues at Yorkshire Sculpture Park until January 2022.

Joana Vasconcelos (1971, Paris, France. Lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal).

Selected solo exhibitions: Beyond, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, West Yorkshire, England (2020); Branco Luz,Le Bon Marché, Paris, France (2019); Glacée dorée, Gowen Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland (2019); I'm Your Mirror, Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain (2018); Joana Vasconcelos, Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany (2017); Joana Vasconcelos - Textures of Life, ARoS Aahrus Kunstmuseum, Aahrus, Denmark (2016).

Selected group exhibitions: 2012-2020 Obras da Coleção António Cachola, Museu de Arte Contemporâneo de Elvas, Elvas, Portugal (2020); Glasstress, Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Venice, Italy (2019); A Metade do Céu, Museu Arpad Szenes-Vieira da Silva, Lisbon, Portugal (2019); 250^th Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, England (2018); Quel Amour!?, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal (2018); and Revival, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, USA (2017).

Awards: The Contemporary Art Prize, Association Française des Amis du Musée d'Art de Tel Aviv, Israel ; Comenda da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique, Presidência da República Portuguesa; and 1º Prémio de Escultura/45^ème Salon de Montrouge, Montrouge, França; among others.

Public collections: ARTIUM – Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Espanha; CAB Contemporary Art Brussels, Belgium; Domaine Pommery, Reims, France; Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisboa, Portugal; and Fundação EDP, Lisboa, Portugal, among others.