Conversation with Joana Vasconcelos

The art of transfiguring objects

Since the onset of her career, Joana Vasconcelos (Paris, 1971) has devoted her production to re-examining the notions of creation and authorship and is, ultimately, known for “recycling” everyday objects in her creations. Vasconcelos’ production analyse the human sphere, communities, interpersonal relationships; between individuals and social groups. “Are pots typical of a Portuguese ethnography”, asks the artist, “No! How about plastic cutlery” No! They are common cultural products; they are the consciously ignored items of our everyday life.” Thus, instead of using raw materials, Vasconcelos works with pre-existing objects – which have already circulated in the cultural market – to create objects informed by other objects.

French curator and art critic Nicolas Bourriaud, in his book Postproduction. La culture comme scénario: commente l’art reprogramme le monde contemporain (Post-Production: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, 2001), proposes that the notions of originality (being at the origin of) and creation (composing something from nothing) are about to merge in an activity called “post-production.” The mixes crafted by DJS, manipulating and introducing new transitions in pre-existing flows of sound-based information, are the quintessential example of this contemporary cultural context. DJS use fragments of previously recorded tracks to create new compositions. “A DJ takes a song from the history of music and creates a new composition which is, also, inscribed in a new musical category. I do not turn to other people’s artworks, but I do use banal objects that we all employ in our everyday life,” says Joana Vasconcelos.

How does your work method differ from a DJ’s
DJS mix one thing with another to obtain a new musical product that is, nevertheless, linked to the original product. I do not do mixes. I depart from a common object, a shoe, pots, objects that no one owns, ordinary objects, not designer pieces or pieces with a specific historical trajectory. In the candlestick [the artwork Néctar, from 2006, made with iron and wine bottles], for instance, I worked with common bottles. The candlestick itself is the notion of an object, it is based on a conventional concept but manufactured using peculiar materials that turn it into something else, removing it from its original historical setting. Therefore, the end result is the design of a new concept for a regular object which in people’s minds is only conceived as a conventional object. I do not mix components, I do not alter their physiognomy, identity or meaning, nor do I turn them into something else. I transform common preconceived ideas about specific objects.

In other words, you appropriate objects from the common imagery and grant them another purpose, but always referring to their original properties…
My works transform the idea physically and simultaneously create a specific individuality. Everything overlaps and juxtaposes. I do not destroy, mutilate or alter them. I do not change their identity. Quite the contrary. I affirm the identity of each of the objects. None of them are created using a mix. That is one of my trademarks. On the other hand, I do not work with elements that have a strong identity. I prefer objects whose meaning is more open; things that are more common and allow me to give them a different identity, to “personalise” them. The objects seemingly lose their original identity to acquire a unique one. For instance, the “Viana heart” [a traditional Portuguese jewel that women wear as a good luck charm when they get married which Vasconcelos reproduces in her enormous Coração Independente Dourado, 2004, using painted iron and covered in plastic] is a trivial object made with paltry objects that, nevertheless, end us becoming a high-end, luxury jewel. By making the Viana heart out of plastic cutlery I aimed to make a futile object, a banality.

How do you alter the objects you work with
I destroy pre-established concepts, I question the legitimacy of what is institutionalised and topple the imposed order. I want to bring the private into the public sphere, or the public into the private sphere, and extract elements from a low social level to introduce them into an elevated sphere. When conceptual paradigms are altered and the disposition of the sensitive reality is shifted, people start to question things: Can the intricacy of Viana de Castelo, usually made in gold or silver, be transformed into plastic? Then they wonder if that synthetic object merits being classed as a luxury product, because luxury is linked to scarce materials. Suddenly, the object becomes a symbol of luxury precisely because it is made of plastic. Essentially that allows us to escape from imposed conceptual ghettos and makes art more democratic, more accessible. I work with massification, with the notion that everything is consumed. Therefore, I favour products that are less valuable, objects that are used by a greater amount of people and I transform them into luxury pieces, thereby shifting their financial value completely. In other words, I go from the supermarket to the museum.

Your objects question the standardisations established by social norms…
They question the main “value” of contemporary culture: consumerism. Aspirins [Sofá Aspirina, 1997, a seat made using aspirin blister packs] and valium [Cama Valium, 1998, a bead made using valium blister packs] criticise the consumption of medicine, of drugs. People very rarely consider excess when they consume, be it alcohol, medicine, clothes… We consume it all in a very surprising manner. My works are fuelled by everything the world consumes. We do not think we “consume” pots or tampons, but in fact, the least socially valued objects, the most banal or common items, are actually the most “consumed,” even though only expensive and special things are considered valuable. Aspirins are probably the most consumed drug in the world. All I am doing is underlining that common fact, which is something people are not used to. However, they are used to t-shirts reading “I want an aspirin” or “Give me a tampon.” Compulsive consumerism is much more frequently connected to vulgar objects than to luxury articles.

What position does your art occupy in the contemporary context?
In a way it has been very interesting to live with that particularity: to see how people are shocked when faced with their own banality and they are prompted to grant special value to common objects like plastic cutlery, pots, tampons, ceramic animals, ties, dusters or blister packs. Trendy women see the shoe [the piece Priscilla, 2007, made with stainless steel pots and lids] as a designer item, but women who are more focused on family, on the traditional aspects of Portuguese society – who cook, etc. – establish other associations and notice the different sizes of the pots and pans. Few manage to combine both elements to come up with a different interpretation. They see one thing or the other, they are not interested in establishing analogies or anything. Therefore, my art deals with being between luxury and banality; with inhabiting a new space. I want to create a different field that I can intervene in, without criticising or refuting it; a preliminary place. My artworks trigger questions about our everyday decisions and assertions.

Published at Lapiz, Revista Internacional de Arte. Año XXIX, Núm. 259/260 (112-121), February/March 2010 España. Joana Vasconcelos, Coração independente dourado, 2004. © DMF, Lisboa; Priscilla (2007), Sofá Aspirina (1997). Courtesy Luís Vasconcelos, Lisboa; Cama Valium, 1998. Courtesy Atelier Joana Vasconcelos, Lisboa. Translation: Laura F. Farhall.