Estimate

15.000 - 20.000

Session

4 February 2016

Hammer Price

Description

Faience by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro painted with ceramic glaze, Azores crochet

14x50x67 cm

Category

Modern and Contemporary Art

Additional Information

Joana Vasconcelos is one of the Portuguese artists with the largest
international exposure. Primarily known for her sculptures made of an
accumulation of everyday materials and techniques linked to Portuguese
decorative arts and crafts, she is considered an ambassador of popular
Portuguese culture. Her work creates a dialogue between high and low
culture: references to history are frequently combined with narratives,
myths and national folklore. In Wash the artist combines a ceramic
work by one of the artists who contributed greatly to the vitality of this
tradition in Portugal — Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (Lisbon 1846–1905) —
with a work of crochet, identical to those used in traditional popular
Portuguese homes to protect the furniture from dust and wear due to
excessive washing. The figure of the serpent — a symbol of the eviction
of Paradise in Western society, generating a regular atonement for sins
— reinforces the critical and ironic character of this work in relation to
the ‘eternal feminine’.
Vasconcelos’ most recent solo exhibitions include: ‘Joana Vasconcelos at
MGM Macau’, MGM Macau, Macao (2015); ‘Time Machine’, Manchester
Art Gallery, Manchester (2014); ‘Lusitana’, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel
Aviv (2013); ‘Joana Vasconcelos’, Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, Lisbon
(2013); and ‘Joana Vasconcelos Versailles’, Château de Versailles, Paris
(2012). She represented Portugal at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013).