Museu Colecção Berardo in Lisbon presented Sem Rede [Nestless], the first survey show of Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos. 

Having initiated her career in the mid-1990s and with an oeuvre increasingly acclaimed both in Portugal and abroad, Vasconcelos is considered the most important Portuguese artist from her generation. Organised by the Museu Colecção Berardo and curated by Miguel Amado, Netless brings together around forty works, thus marking out a panoramic view of Vasconcelos’ practice. The exhibition is focused on her output of the last fifteen years, comprising not only the large-scale sculptures made in the last decade, but also several pieces from the 1990s, many of them unknown since their original presentation. This exhibition thus represents a unique opportunity for viewers to become acquainted with Vasconcelos’ production or
rediscover it in depth.

Vasconcelos interprets the current world through a unique reading of the mentalities, mythologies and iconographies of consumer society. Finding her inspiration in common imagination, she examines various themes of daily life. Therefore, acting in accordance with an allegorical impulse and a derisory action, she deconstructs the values, habits and customs of Western civilization in order to comment the existence of the present, to frame the past’s legacy, and to envision the future’s paths. Crossing tradition with modernity, the collective unconscious with history, and the sublime with the symbolic, she questions identity, be it based on gender, class, or nationality. Her works combine cultural references (from artistic movements to daily expressions), quotidian objects with sign value (such as feather-dusters, blister packs of pills, tampons, domestic utensils, plastic cutlery, and pots and lids), and popular materials and techniques (such as tiles and Bordalo Pinheiro’s faiences or knitting and crochet). 

Ingeniously manipulated, these elements lose their meaning and make up a new form, which reconceptualise the original sense and thereby reflect the entropic experience that characterizes the contemporary condition. The exhibition includes well-known works such as A Noiva (2001-2005), the series Coração Independente (2004-2008), and Cinderela (2007). These works investigate the female condition, a subject matter that runs throughout the Vasconcelos’ production. From Flores do Meu Desejo (1996-2009) to Vista Interior (2000), as well as the ensemble Sofá Aspirina (1997) and Cama Valium (1998), it is the debate on women’s status that the artist is expressing here. However, the exhibition includes other, lesser-known works that address several political and economical topics. One might refer, for example, to corporate ideology (Ponto de Encontro, 2000), the ostentation of class (Menu do Dia, 2001), the dazzled exercising of power (O Mundo a Seus Pés, 2001), religious intolerance (Burka, 2002), and the security state (Una Dirección, 2003). Recent works highlight social issues, such as the conflict between technological progress and the conservation of nature (Jardim do Éden [Labirinto], 2010), or illness as a metaphor for global malaise (Contaminação, 2008-2010).

Vasconcelos’s practice is presented from a point of view that not only challenges the dominant approaches to her art but also recreates her particular vision as no exhibition has ever done until today.

Major solo exhibitions at Museu Coleção Berardo (Sem Rede, 2010) and Palácio Nacional da Ajuda (Joana Vasconcelos, 2013) are the most visited exhibitions in Portugal, with around 168,000 and 235,000 visitors respectively.