Joana Vasconcelos sculpture, Victoria is one of the most brilliant works of art of the contemporary time.
This art work has one signifiant and as many signifiés as people who look at it, and that multiplied ad infinitum according to the point of view where one places himself when he observes Victoria. The sign thus becomes dumb and the signification is to be sought in the irreversibility of time, since we are free in the same way that time is irreversible. This makes Victoria a headlong rush since time is movement and what it is, it is no longer.
It is a polyhedral mirror whose faces are unlimited but where the spectators cannot see their reflection there, because it would be necessary to be a Porteur de Clés to have the capacity for that. Victoria wants to oblige its spectators to become actors, which fear will prevent them even from trying. Therefore, to protect themselves, they will try to name it at the expense of their inward conviction of their impossibility of doing it.
It is the victory of Man over the mediocrity, over the acknowledged. It is the possibility that one day Man will enter the lion’s cage and will get out of it unscathed.
Victoria could symbolize the values defended by Krishnamurti in his work Freedom from the known, which means that the mystery which is behind each door that one opens will never disappear. It is the defeat of the Takers, it is the triumph of the Irrational.
Beatriz de Vasconcelos Barange

© David Luciano | Courtesy Museu Colecção Berardo, Lisboa

© Bertrand Huet | Tutti | Courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Bruxelas

© 2008, DMF

© Bertrand Huet | Tutti | Courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Bruxelas

© 2008, DMF

© Peter Mallet | Courtesy Haunch of Venison, Londres
Artwork Details
Production Date
2008
Materials
Handmade knitting and crochet, industrial knitted fabric, fabrics, adornaments, polyester, steel cables
Dimensions
400 x 300 x 350 cm
Artwork exhibited at
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