Love doesn’t hurt at all in the woodland grove where Joana Vasconcelos has constructed a giant wedding cake. Cupids balance playfully on pedestals, water spurts from the mouths of dolphins and little statues of St Anthony bless newlyweds all around the tiled circumference of her 12m tall sculpture. Kitsch and beautiful, absurd and captivating, this may be the first wholeheartedly joyful artistic masterpiece of the 21st century.
You can go inside, passing between the electric candles and ceramic mermaids, to find a domed circular wedding chapel that pulses with bright colours, twisty columns and even more jaunty figures. This is a building with the irresponsibility of a work of art. You climb the stairs to the higher tiers of the “cake”, and find yourself suddenly above the trees in an impossibly light and heady place.
