In this special tour of the exhibition VENUS – Valentino Garavani through the Eyes of Joana Vasconcelos, Joana Vasconcelos and fashion historian, curator and university lecturer Anabela Becho explore the exhibition in dialogue, bringing together different perspectives on the creative worlds it encompasses. 

The conversation takes its starting point from the artworks and dresses to explore the relationships between art and fashion, creation and materiality, the body and space. Between Joana Vasconcelos’s perspective on the processes, references and choices that shaped the project and Anabela Becho’s insight into the history and culture of fashion, different layers of the exhibition are revealed, opening up new ways of interpreting the encounter between two creative worlds that are brought together and transform one another. 

This conversation forms part of the series ‘Conversations in Motion: art and other forms of knowledge’, a space where art intersects with other fields of knowledge, inviting artists, curators, architects and thinkers to reflect on the ways contemporary creation engages with culture, science, philosophy and everyday life. 

In this series, artistic practice is understood as an expanded field of knowledge, capable of generating new ways of interpreting the world and bringing about transformations in the way we perceive and inhabit it. This is an exercise in listening and shared thought, in which dialogue drives discovery: a space in motion, where ideas circulate, intersect and transform. 

Useful information

Date: October 3rd, 2026

Time: 16:00–17:00

Duration: 60 min.

Target audience: General public, students, and professionals working in the fields of art, fashion, design, and culture.

Language: Portuguese

Capacity: Min. 5 | Max. 28 participants

Meeting point: Hall MAAT Gallery 

Location: MAAT Gallery

Price: Museum admission ticket | Free for MAAT Friends

• Access is subject to venue capacity. Visitors must collect a wristband in advance from the museum ticket office (MAAT Central).
• Wristbands can be collected from 90 minutes prior to the event.
• MAAT Friends enjoy free entry to the museum, but must also collect a wristband.

Biography

Anabela Becho

A fashion historian and curator, Anabela Becho holds a PhD in Design (specialising in fashion), a Master’s degree and a Bachelor’s degree in Painting, and a degree in Fashion Design. She is visiting lecturer in Fashion Studies and Fashion Design Criticism at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon, and Fashion Curator at MUDE – Museu do Design. She is the author of the books Madame Grès, Matter and Memory: Suspending Time in Fashion (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, to be published in 2027) and Vivre sa vie, Georges Dambier et la mode / Viver a sua Vida, Georges Dambier e a Moda (MNT/DGPC, 2022). She has curated several exhibitions, including Vivre sa vie. Georges Dambier and Fashion (Cristóbal Balenciaga Museum, Spain, on display until 13 December 2026); Vivienne Westwood: The Tigress’ Leap / O Salto da Tigresa (MUDE, 2025); Viver a sua Vida, Georges Dambier e a Moda (Museu Nacional do Traje, 2022); Caleidoscópio – a Alta-costura de Christian Lacroix (MUDE, 2015).  

Joana Vasconcelos

Born in 1971, Joana Vasconcelos is a Portuguese visual artist whose nearly three-decade career encompasses a wide variety of techniques. Renowned for her monumental sculptures and immersive installations, she recontextualises everyday objects and brings the concept of arts and crafts into the twenty-first century, establishing a dialogue between the private sphere and public space, popular heritage and high culture. Through humour and irony, she addresses the status of women, consumer society and collective identity.
International recognition came in 2005 with A Noiva (The Bride) at the first Venice Biennale curated by women. Since then, she has returned to the Biennale three times, including in 2013 with Trafaria Praia, presented as the Portuguese Pavilion and the first floating pavilion in the event’s history. She was the youngest artist and the first woman to exhibit at the Palace of Versailles; in 2012, her exhibition became the most visited in France in the previous fifty years, attracting a record 1.6 million visitors. In 2018, she became the first Portuguese artist to have a solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, recognised by The Art Newspaper as the fourth best exhibition of the year and the third most visited in the museum’s history. In 2023, she achieved the distinction of exhibiting at the Uffizi Galleries and Palazzo Pitti in Florence, alongside works by masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Caravaggio.
Across four continents, her work has also been presented in exhibitions at Palazzo Grassi, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the Royal Academy of Arts, Manchester Art Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Kunsthal Rotterdam, CCBB and the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Istanbul Modern, Moscow’s Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Le Centquatre, La Monnaie de Paris, Palais de Tokyo and the Hermitage Museum. Her work is represented in major collections including the Tia Collection, the Ömer Koç Collection, the CCB/Berardo Collection, and the collections of the Rothschild, Calouste Gulbenkian, François Pinault and Louis Vuitton foundations.