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Chateau de Versailles: From 19 June to 30 September 2012, the Palace of Versailles presents the exhibition Joana Vasconcelos Versailles in the State Apartments and the gardens. Joana Vasconceloson her Versailles exhibition: 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.My work has developed around the idea that the world is an opera, and Versailles embodies the operatic and aesthetic ideal that inspires me. The works that I propose exist for this place. I see them as linked to Versailles in a timeless way. When I stroll through the rooms of the Palace and its Gardens, I feel the energy of a setting that gravitates between reality and dreams, the everyday and magic, the festive and the tragic. I can still hear the echo of the footsteps of Marie-Antoinette, and the music and festive ambiance of the stately rooms. How would the life of Versailles look if this exuberant and grandiose universe was transferred to our period?Interpreting the dense mythology of Versailles, transporting it into the contemporary world, and evoking the presence of the important female figures that have lived here, while drawing on my identity and my experience as a Portuguese woman born in France, will certainly be the most fascinating challenge of my career. Image: ‘Red Independent Heart’ by Joana Vasconcelos/ © Château de Versailles / DMF, Lisbon / Courtesy Atelier Joana Vasconcelos

Chateau de Versailles: From 19 June to 30 September 2012, the Palace of Versailles presents the exhibition Joana Vasconcelos Versailles in the State Apartments and the gardens.

Joana Vasconceloson her Versailles exhibition:

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.

My work has developed around the idea that the world is an opera, and Versailles embodies the operatic and aesthetic ideal that inspires me. The works that I propose exist for this place. I see them as linked to Versailles in a timeless way. When I stroll through the rooms of the Palace and its Gardens, I feel the energy of a setting that gravitates between reality and dreams, the everyday and magic, the festive and the tragic. I can still hear the echo of the footsteps of Marie-Antoinette, and the music and festive ambiance of the stately rooms. How would the life of Versailles look if this exuberant and grandiose universe was transferred to our period?

Interpreting the dense mythology of Versailles, transporting it into the contemporary world, and evoking the presence of the important female figures that have lived here, while drawing on my identity and my experience as a Portuguese woman born in France, will certainly be the most fascinating challenge of my career.

Image: ‘Red Independent Heart’ by Joana Vasconcelos/ © Château de Versailles / DMF, Lisbon / Courtesy Atelier Joana Vasconcelos

Filed under joana Vasconcelos versailles france art modern art

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An abandoned place, sorrowful, yet things are coming back. Mignonette and starflower, anemone and rue. The water lilies are in bloom, the doves cooing and guarding their nests in the roof thatch. The farmer and his wife are still living in their little cottage on the far side of the wheat field, tending all the animals the Queen left behind—including the babies she’ll never get a chance to feed, all those lambs and bunnies and chicks—and milking Blanchette and Brunette twice a day, though no longer into porcelain basins, but into tin pails. —Versailles: a novel by Kathryn Davis photo: ‘Petit Trianon’ by campra on Flickr

An abandoned place, sorrowful, yet things are coming back. Mignonette and starflower, anemone and rue. The water lilies are in bloom, the doves cooing and guarding their nests in the roof thatch. The farmer and his wife are still living in their little cottage on the far side of the wheat field, tending all the animals the Queen left behind—including the babies she’ll never get a chance to feed, all those lambs and bunnies and chicks—and milking Blanchette and Brunette twice a day, though no longer into porcelain basins, but into tin pails.

—Versailles: a novel by Kathryn Davis

photo: ‘Petit Trianon’ by campra on Flickr

Filed under marie antoinette versailles petit trianon historical fiction