Joana Vasconcelos was born in 1971 in Lisbon, Portugal. Not much is widely available about her personal life, but she has been in art exhibits since the 1990s. She became known more internationally due to her work A Novia, an elegant chandelier made out of tampons, in 2005.

Many of her works incorporate crocheted lace patterns, sewn plush matterial, or large objects made out of hundreds to thousands of objects such as pots, pans, tampons, and ostrich feathers. In 2012, She became the youngest artist, and the first woman, to exhibit their work in the Palace of Versailles.

Vasconcelos’ works tend to explore different issues such as consumerism or gender identity. In 2018, the artist claimed her 2002 Burka as her most feminist piece. “It’s about the limitations put on female identity, but also how this loss of identity can offer safety, even power.”

One of her more recent popular works is Pop Galo. Pop Galo is a ten meter tall statue of a rooster, covered in hand painted tiles and LED lights. The giant bird is based on the Rooster of Barcelos, one of the most important symbols in Portuguese popular culture. The statue was first displayed to the public in Lisbon November 2016, and has since traveled as far as Beijing, China.

There exists somewhere a film showcasing Vasconcelos’s creative process for an exhibition in 2013. I tried to find it. All I found was stuff about the pavilion where it took place. Her website, joanavasconcelos.com has a whole paragraph trying to describe her creative process:

“The nature of Joana Vasconcelos’s creative process is based on the appropriation, decontextualisation and subversion of pre-existent objects and everyday realities…. From this process there derives a speech which is attentive to contemporary idiosyncrasies…”

Works Cited:

http://www.popgalo.com/pequim/?lang=en&f=2

http://joanavasconcelos.com/biografia_en.aspx

http://joanavasconcelos.com/obras_en.aspx

How Joana Vasconcelos’s Feminist Work Is Redefining Art History

joana vasconcelos at versailles

El Anatsui is a contemporary Ghanaian sculpture and painter. Throughout Anatsui’s years, he has used wood, discarded metal, and clay to create unique and elaborated works. He is also known for using bottle caps from liquor bottles to create colorful textures of fabric-like forms for wall hanging that he would refer as “cloths”. He would make his art into a new kind of form with the used materials he finds that would leave the viewer in awe. As a global artist, he focuses in using consumption and colonialism while using historical references of European and African abstraction with the sense of Minimalism.

Anatsui was born in Anyako, Ghana (part of the Volta region) and is the youngest of 32 children in his family while growing up. At an early age, he developed an interest in using variety of materials and medias that highlighted his identity as an artist. In 1968, he graduated from the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana to pursue in fine arts with a bachelor’s degree. There, he studied drawing, painting, and sculpture in Western tradition. 

In 1975, Anatsui became a professor of sculpture at the University of Nsukka in Nigera where he taught for 35 years. There at the university, he began to try medium in clay where wood began less available. Recently, he had given up his position as a professor of art at University of Nigeria to concentrate on his studio work. Soon, he begins doing installation art where he woves cloth into patterns of kentecloth that becomes sculpture instead of being seen as a textile. He creates his cloths with out of found objects he used; like bottle caps used to be tied together with wire to create a vast sculpture that resembles a tapestry. 

Anatsui has also received awards for his works; in 2008, the Visionaries Artist Award from the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City and in 2009, Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands. 

Currently, Anatsui is in his late-seventies and lives and works in Nigeria where he still continues to work on his art. He had said that when developing his art he searched for “something that had more relationship to me, as someone growing in an African country” and wanted to “draw connections between consumption, waste, and the environment.” Most of his works has also been collected by museums and galleries across the globe for visitors from other countries to see; like the Brooklyn Museum, British Museum, the Tate Modern, the Centre Pompidou, the de Young Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim, Osaka Foundation of Culture, and the Museum of Modern Art.

When I was searching for an artist, I discovered El Anatsui on Art21 and his work reminded me of some artworks I’ve seen at the Frist Museum in Nashville. There were some fabric-like works that I was fascinated by that was based on Native American culture. I could imagine standing before his artwork and questioning and mesmerized how he used his craftsmanship to create such amazing works. It actually makes me hope to one day see one of his works in person and just analyze the details he made. Additionally, It was interesting as I research more about him and his work of how he became a great artist and teacher to others around the world.

Work Cited:     
https://art21.org/artist/el-anatsui/     
https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/el-anatsui/   https://universes.art/en/specials/2010/who-knows-tomorrow/artists/el-anatsui/biography   
http://www.artnet.com/artists/el-anatsui/biography  http://www.artnet.com/artists/el-anatsui/  https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/el-anatsui-17306/who-is-el-anatsui