What Artists Are Doing Now. Joana Vasconcelos in Lisbon
An inspiration and mutual solidarity project for the creative industries
At the focus of the What Artists Are Doing Now project is the creative person, their thoughts on this peculiar time, and their visions of the future and art. Arterritory.com began this series as a pandemic initiative with the aim of showing and affirming that neither life nor creative energy are coming to a stop during this crisis. We have invited artists from all over the world to send us a short video or photo story illustrating what they are doing, what they are thinking, and how they are feeling during this time of crisis.
Although we are immensely happy that in many places around the world museums and galleries are once again opening their doors to visitors, all of our lives have significantly changed and, most likely, will never be quite like they were before. Today, the importance of art in the lives of virtually everyone has doubtlessly intensified, for artists are visionaries who can inspire those around them as they simultaneously do their part in providing solutions to global problems.
From her studio in Lisbon, Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos answers a short questionnaire by Arterritory.com:
Are you working on any projects right now in your studio? If so, could you briefly describe them?
Sadly, the pandemic forced me to close the studio for the first time ever in 25 years. As the whole world, we had to reinvent our routines working from home and continuing with the projects at hand, the best way possible under the circumstances. My team and I have been working for some time now on a big architectural sculpture shaped as a wedding cake and that came to a halt but we proceeded as we could, working on the textile components for its interior, for instance. We have been also very busy preparing to launch a new collaboration with Roche Bobois, it was quite an interesting exercise, to create a whole collection exploring the bridge between design and art. Personally, I have really missed travelling and sharing everyday life with my team at the studio, but I took this opportunity to do masses of drawings and crochet.
At the studio. Photo: Luís Vasconcelos for Atelier Joana Vasconcelos
What is your recipe for survival in these difficult and challenging times?
Drawing and crochet (laughs). And lots of yoga and meditation. We have a well being department at the studio that provides for that, among other treatments and training sessions, so we adjusted to the new reality and started doing everything on Zoom instead, on a daily basis. It was very important to keep the creativity going, continuing with all the artistic work.
Drawing by Joana Vasconcelos
What is something that we all (each of us, personally) could do to make the world a better place when this crisis comes to an end? It is clear that the world will no longer be the same again, but at the same time... There is a kind of magic in every new beginning.
I don’t think things will ever be the same again. We’re living a turning point in the history of mankind, comparable to the French Revolution, as our resident astrologer at the studio has pointed out. I agree there is a kind of magic in the new beginnings and I think this is the moment to relearn compassion. And to be compassionate to one another. It’s important to rethink the world and do things differently. I believe this moment is important to reorganise our lifestyle and our lives.
Jardimdas Delícias. Drawing by Joana Vasconcelos
The art world and the culture sector are some of the most affected. What is the main lesson the art world should learn from all this? How do you imagine the post-pandemic art scene?
I think the art world needs to learn that we have to help each other more. We have to show more solidarity to one another, because we were actually deeply affected and there is a side of solidarity that is fundamental to overcoming all of this.
Drawing for Bombom collection. Tutti Frutti Tapis
Regarding the post-pandemic art scene, I think lockdown brought a bigger sense of appreciation for the space in museums, galleries and the public areas dedicated to art fruition. Many museums and galleries have gone online with all kinds of experiments to keep things going during lockdown, and although that can be very important in terms of communication of the work, nothing replaces the physical experience of standing in front of a masterpiece. There is an emotional and relational side that requires the body and its energy. The physical body relates to the artistic body and that interaction cannot be replaced or provided digitally. There is an emotional experience that develops when we are faced with a painting or a sculpture, that has to do with the sense of scale, the acknowledgement of texture, the physical perception that is only possible in loco. And it will be interesting to see that happen again, people interacting with art and valuing it once again.
Joana Vasconcelos. Photo: Kenton Thatcher for Atelier Joana Vasconcelos
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Joana Vasconcelos was born in 1971. She lives and works in Lisbon. She has exhibited regularly since the mid-1990s. Her work became known internationally after her participation in the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, with the work A Noiva [The Bride] (2001-05). She was the first woman and the youngest artist to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles, in 2012. Recent highlights of her career include a solo exhibition at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the project Trafaria Praia, for the Pavilion of Portugal at the 55th Venice Biennale; the participation in the group exhibition The World Belongs to You at the Palazzo Grassi/François Pinault Foundation, Venice (2011); and her first retrospective, held at the Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2010).
She has had solo exhibitions and projects at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, United Kingdom (2020); MAAM - MassArt Art Museum, Boston, USA (2020); Kunsthal Rotterdam (2019); Museu de Serralves, Porto (2019); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg, France (2018); ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark (2016); 56thInternational Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia, Italy (2015); Waddesdon Manor - The Rothschild Foundation, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom (2015); Manchester Art Gallery, United Kingdom (2014); Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel (2013); Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, Lisbon, Portugal (2013); CENTQUATRE, Paris, France (2012); Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark (2011); Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2009); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil (2008); Palazzo Nani Bernardo Lucheschi, Venice, Italy (2007); The New Art Gallery Walsall, England (2007), CaixaForum, Barcelona, Spain (2006); Passage du Désir/BETC EURO RSCG, Paris, France (2005); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2003), Museu da Eletricidade, Lisbon, Portugal (2001); and the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2000).
She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2018); La Monnaie, Paris (2017); Museo di Roma - Palazzo Braschi, Rome (2016); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2015); Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Stockholm (2014); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France (2013); ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (2012); the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2011); Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2010); Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2009);FRAC Île-de-France/Le Plateau, Paris (2008); MUDAM, Luxembourg City (2007); Istanbul Modern, Istanbul (2006); MUSAC, Léon, Spain (2005); Stenersenmuseet, Oslo (2004); MARCO, Vigo, Spain (2003); Műcsarnok, Budapest (2002); and the XXVI Bienal de Arte de Pontevedra, Spain (2000).
Her work is represented in various private and public collections, including Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul; ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, Denmark; Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Lisbon; Centro de Artes Visuales Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, Spain; City of Lisbon; City of Paris; Domaine Pommery, Reims, France; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France; Fundação EDP, Lisbon; Gerard L. Cafesjian Collection, Yerevan, Armenia; MACE – Coleção António Cachola, Elvas, Portugal; MUSAC, Léon, Spain; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; the Pinault Collection, Paris and Venice; and The Rothschild Collection, Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom.
The nature of Joana Vasconcelos’s creative process is based on the appropriation, decontextualisation 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 Réalisme and pop, the artist offers us a complicit vision, but one which is at the same time critical of contemporary society and the 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 contemporary idiosyncrasies, where the 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 characteristic of contemporaneity.
