From the 1st of July, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Ibiza will host the exhibition ‘Valkyrie Crown’, by Joana Vasconcelos, a colourful and symbolic proposal that will occupy the MACE’s Sala de Armas until the 31st of October. The work comes to Ibiza after having been exhibited in such iconic places as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (Spain), the Château de Versailles, the Jardin des Tulleries for Dior, Le Bon Marché and the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (France), the Manchester Art Gallery and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (United Kingdom), the Palazzo Bocconi in Milan (Italy), the AroS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Denmark), the Kunsthal Rotterdam (Holland), the Copan Building and Cidade Matarazzo, both in Sao Paulo (Brazil), the MAAM MassArt Museum in Boston (USA), the MGM Macao and Fosun Foundation Shanghai (China) and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Israel).
Joana Vasconcelos’ ‘Valkyrias’ are large-format sculptures inspired by the deities of Norse mythology, who flew over the battlefields and brought back to life the brave warriors killed in war to meet the gods in Valhalla. Made with textile materials, they express the creativity of the artist, through a variety of fabrics, embroidery fabrics, crochet needle and trimmings. The final result is a combination of volumes, textures and colors, using manual works and updating the connection between the different crafts of the 21st century. Formed by a central body, head and tail and several arms, many ‘Valkyries’ also combine craftsmanship with technological components, through the incorporation of lights that -simulating vibration and breathing- endow them with movement and life.
Thirty-year career
Born in 1971, Joana Vasconcelos is a Portuguese visual artist with a thirty-year career, recognized for her monumental sculptures and immersive installations. Decontextualizing objects and updating the concept of handicrafts towards the 21st century, she establishes a new concept of art a prolific dialogue between private and public spheres, popular heritage and high culture. With irony and a sense of humor, she questions the status of women, consumer society and collective identity. Her international fame came in 2005 with the first Venice Biennale curated by women, with the work ‘The Bride’, followed by ‘Trafaria Praia’, the first floating pavilion of the Biennale representative in Portugal in 2013. She was the youngest artist and the first woman to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles, where she achieved a record number of visitors with 1.6 million, making it the most visited exhibition in France in the last fifty years.
She has received more than 30 awards, in 2009 she received the rank of Commander of the Order of the Child Mr. Henrique from the hands of the President of the Republic of Portugal and in 2022 she received the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Minister of Culture. Since 2006 Joana Vasconcelos runs a studio in Lisbon with more than 50 employees and in 2012 she created the Joana Vasconcelos Foundation to grant scholarships to students, support social causes and promote art for all.
Her latest projects include the large work ‘Wedding cake’, at Waddesdon Manor (England), the solo exhibition at Tang Gallery in Beijing (China) scheduled for July 15, 2023 and a solo exhibition at the Uffizi in Florence (Italy) scheduled for October 9, 2023.
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