The sculptor Joana Vasconcelos isn’t one for half measures. She produces works that are outsized, iconic, and ironic. “I’m not like the sculptors of the 19th century,” she once explained, “using a technique or a specific material as a starting point and then developing the art pieces. I’m an artist who works from an idea, and then I build it.” In the hallowed halls of the Liria Palace, four of Vasconcelos’s most important works are on display. Her majestic lamp, Carmen, hangs in the library; her two cotton lions, Vigorous and Powerful, stand in the main entrance; and Marilyn, a gigantic pair of embellished silver pumps modeled on Marilyn Monroe’s shoes in The Seven Year Itch, are on view alongside her Valkyrie Thyra, crafted in Dior fabrics. —Elena Clavarino