In Past Show

GLASSFEVER - Contemporary Art in Glass at Fondazione Berengo

Joana Vasconcelos came to public attention for her sculpture A Noiva (The Bride) at the 2005 Venice Biennale, a five-meter-tall chandelier made from 25,000 tampons. Influenced by the 1960s Nouveau Réalisme movement, Marcel Duchamp's readymades, and the symbolic, tactile constructions of Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse, Vasconcelos takes objects and materials from daily life and sets them into new and intricate assemblages. Interested in ideas of womanhood, nationality, and family, she frequently incorporates crafts like knitting and crochet into her art, as well as common Portuguese household items like ceramic figures. For Piano Dentelle (2008), one of Vasconcelos’s most recognizable works, she covered a grand piano in a gorgeous lacy crochet reminiscent of snowflakes.