Art Of The Day Weekly

Joana Vasconcelos, the delusions of grandeur

PARIS – Her exhibition at the Guggenheim Bilbao, that closed last November, set a new record of attendance with nearly 650,000 visitors, and the magazine on line “Politico” placed her among the 28 European personalities of 2019, next to Matteo Salvini, Pedro Sanchez, Jeremy Corbyn or Yulia Timochenko – who could be making a come-back in Ukraine. The Portuguese artist, born in Paris in 1971, exploits society’s consumer products with humor and cynicism, whether it’s hygienic tampons or pharmaceutical pills, making irons dance or putting feathers on helicopters. The artist is truly living her heyday. This week she will succeed Leandro Erlich in taking over the Bon Marché department store, where she has hung one of her immense characters in her special patchwork of various materials for which she holds the secret. She says it is a Valkyrie - a heroine known in particular for her warrior tendencies. Her though she has lost all harshness and has become softer, as if tamed by the materials that she is made of. She becomes kind and sensual. Let us imagine that this is a visual allegory of the situation on our continent – where authoritarian, nationalist, or racist declarations dwindle away and die out like wet sticks of firecrackers.
• Carte blanche à Joana Vasconcelos at the Bon Marché, from 17 January 2019.

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