Perruque, 2012, by Joana Vasconcelos is the Collection Caixa Geral de Depósitos’ current highlight as the sculpture is on loan to the exhibition Flamboyant. The show is open at Palacio de Liria – Fundación Casa de Alba, Madrid, from February 14 to July 31, 2025.

Using a range of everyday objects, the artist develops a Pop language that questions contemporary consumer society and its connection with the current artistic and cultural milieu. Through careful and meticulous artisanal handicraft, the artist makes it possible to address, with a new viewpoint, well established historical accounts, such as, feminine issues the artist has tackled since the beginning of her career in the 1990s. Perruque was specially created for the bedroom of Queen Marie Antoinette, wife of King Louis XVI, on the occasion of the 2012 exhibition by the artist held at the Château de Versailles. Inspired by the delirious and unusual hairstyles the queen consort was known for, Perruque is made using the old handicraft ways thus allowing the viewer to recall the luxury and exuberance lived in those days. The work, produced with Fundação Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva (FRESS), Lisbon, involved the collaboration of many departments such as Design, Sawmilling, Carpentry, Carving, Foundry, Metalwork, Engraving, Inlay and Polishing. The sculpture, made of ebony and amaranth, has an oval shape in the centre – an elusive reference to Fabergé eggs –, and is decorated with fine inlays and gold-plated metal applications inspired by flowers reminiscent of furniture from the period. The sculpture displays many conical shapes on the surface with protruding wigs of various colours and shapes, which configure a strange object that alternates between useful furniture and futile beauty. An intense critique of the excesses committed in difficult times and the need to consume beauty products, Perruque seems to reveal itself as a cocoon that undermines the spaces in which it is presented, as if it were a virus. Even though its luxurious production is in line with the palaces where it is shown, its oddity and its appeal seem to be both critical and contradictory. The work was also presented at Palácio da Ajuda, Lisbon, in 2013.

Joana Vasconcelos, born in Paris in 1971, has exhibited her work in important museums around the world, including: Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Ufizi Galleries, Florence; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Pinacoteca de São Paulo; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow; and Museu Serralves, Porto. In 2009, she was awarded the title of Commander of the Order of Prince Henry by the President of Portugal. In 2022, she was appointed Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.

Hugo Dinis