This year contemporary art is represented at Versailles by Joana Vasconcelos. After the American Jeff Koons, the Japanese Takashi Murakami, and the Frenchmen Xavier Veilhan and Bernar Venet, she is the first woman, as well as the youngest artist, to tackle the unsurpassed historical benchmark that is the Château of Versailles.
The approach of the Portuguese artist Vasconcelos, born in Paris in 1971, consists of the reappropriation of everyday objects which she transforms using inventive and unexpected techniques. These displacements produce hybrid objects made with azulejos (glazed ceramic tiles) and crochet work (a French word appropriated and amplified by the work of Portuguese women): they are stitched together, welded, gilded, etc. In a word, they undergo a metamorphosis.
As Vasconcelos puts it, “The Palace of Versailles is the place of art par excellence, where artists have always felt at home, displaying their work in it not as an exhibition space but as a setting totally imbued with art. It is a full, complete and rich place where it seems that nothing can be added. It is the ideal setting for celebrating audacity, experimentation and freedom, where creative talent is appreciated like in no other place.”
Make sure to pass by this stunning art exhibit between 19 June to 30 September 2012.
Words and Photos by Khaleelesque
