Born in 1971, Joana Vasconcelos is a Portuguese visual artist with a career spanning over 30 years and a huge variety of media. Recognised for her monumental sculptures and immersive installations, she decontextualises everyday objects and updates the arts and crafts concept for the 21st century, establishing a dialogue between the private sphere and public space, popular heritage and high culture. With humor and irony, she questions the status of women, consumer society and collective identity.

International acclaim arrived in 2005 with The Bride at the first Venice Biennale curated by women, where she has returned seven times to date, in 2013 at the helm of Trafaria Praia representing Portugal as the first ever floating pavilion of the event. The youngest artist and first woman to exhibit at the Versailles’ Palace; in 2012 her exhibition was the most visited in France in 50 years, with a record 1.6 million visitors. In 2018 she became the first Portuguese artist to have an individual exhibition at Guggenheim Bilbao, the fourth best that year for The Art Newspaper and the third most visited in the history of the museum. In 2023 she was granted the honour to exhibit at the Uffizi Galleries and Pitti Palace, in Florence, alongside classical masters such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo or Caravaggio. Her Wedding Cake for Waddesdon Manor was considered “the first wholeheartedly joyful artistic masterpiece of the 21st century” by The Guardian and came second in its “best art and architecture” 2023 list.

Around the world, her artworks have also graced exhibitions at Grassi Palace, Thyssen-Bornemisza, Royal Academy of Arts, Manchester Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Kunsthal Rotterdam, São Paulo’s CCBB and Pinacoteca, Istanbul Modern, Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture in Moscow, Le Centquatre and La Monnaie Paris, Palais de Tokyo and Hermitage; besides integrating the collectionsTia, Ömer Koç, Berardo and those of the foundations Rothschild, Calouste Gulbenkian, Culturgest, François Pinault and Louis Vuitton.

The recipient of over 30 awards, in 2009 she received the rank of Commander of the Order of Infante D. Henrique by the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic and became an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture in 2022. From Lisbon to the world, since 2006 she manages the Atelier Joana Vasconcelos with over 50 employees and, in 2012, she created the Joana Vasconcelos Foundation to grant scholarships, support social causes and promote art for all.