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Joana Vasconcelos
Description
- Joana Vasconcelos
- Fruit Cake
- plastic sand moulds and stainless steel
- 287 by 250 by 250cm.
- 113 by 98 1/2 by 98 1/2 in.
Exhibited
Bad Homburg, Kurpark, Blickachsen 10, 2015
Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, Waddesdon Manor, Feast Weekend at Waddesdon, 2016
Literature
Fruit Cake comes from Vasconcelos’s ‘Treats’ series, in which the artist explores ideas and imagery which pertain to our contemporary consumerist culture. The monumental form of a cupcake is outlined via a steel frame and built up from plastic moulds typically used by children when playing with sand. The moulds are vivid in colour and shaped like various fruits and pretzels. Combining immensely exaggerated scale with captivating colours, Vasconcelos references commercial strategies of temptation as products are continually made bigger and brighter. The simple steel frame, however, is a reminder of the hollowness of the culture, where sales are pinned on strategies of seduction rather than substance.
Fruit Cake was exhibited in June 2016 at Waddesdon Manor’s Big Lunch to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s 90th birthday.