Joana Vasconcelos. Garden of Eden #2

The installation Garden of Eden #2, specially created for Es Baluard’s Aljub by Joana Vasconcelos (b. Paris, 1971), presents itself as the “negative” of the classical idea of a garden. The obvious artificiality of the flowers, their powerful luminous attraction on being shown in dark interior spaces and the need for a supply of electricity, transport the spectator to an illusory sensation highlighted by the movement and the noise of the motors. It is a complete paradox that, on the other hand, achieves the same level of seduction as a sun-soaked natural garden at its maximum splendour.

Joana Vasconcelos, conscious of the fact that a garden is a human construction, a manipulation of nature for a dream or for individual or collective enjoyment, has built this garden with considerable irony. In a continuous transfer, the artist, who was born in Paris but is to all intents and purposes Portuguese, time after time appropriates common objects to turn them into something extraordinary, she appropriates things that live in everyday life to lead them to a magic world capable of generating illusions and creating dreams, and she appropriates that which is markedly banal to bestow it with a transcendence in the field of conceptual as well as objectual artistic expression.

For the first time in the Balearic Islands, Joana Vasconcelos, one of the most solid young artists with considerable strength and recognition on the international stage, has created a work specifically for a historical setting. However, Garden of Eden #2 transcends its installation in Es Baluard’s Aljub, as it is part of a large-scale project in the career of this Portuguese artist. It is the second work in a series that began in 2007 in the New Art Gallery Walsall (United Kingdom) and which, after being exhibited in Palma, becomes part of a major retrospective exhibition that the Belém Cultural Centre in Lisbon dedicates to the work of Joana Vasconcelos in 2010.

Location-Hall: Aljub
Production: Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma and sponsored by CAM – Caja Mediterráneo