Carlos Bunga. Installation view: Against the Extravagance of Desire, 2022. Palacio de Cristal – Parque del Retiro, Madrid.
Courtesy: Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Photos: Joaquín Cortes and Román Lores.
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Carlos Bunga. Installation view: Against the Extravagance of Desire, 2022. Palacio de Cristal – Parque del Retiro, Madrid.
Courtesy: Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Photos: Joaquín Cortes and Román Lores.
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Carlos Bunga (b. 1976 Porto) attended the Escola Superior de Arte e Design in Caldas da Rainha, in Portugal. He currently lives and works near Barcelona.
He creates process-oriented works in various formats: sculptures, paintings, drawings, performances, video, and above all in situ installations, that refer to and intervene in their immediate architectural surroundings.
While often using ordinary, unassuming materials such as packing cardboard and adhesive tape, Bunga’s work involves a highly developed degree of aesthetic care and delicacy, as well as a conceptual complexity derived from the inter-relationship between doing and undoing, between unmaking and remaking, between the micro and the macro, between investigation and conclusion. Straddling the divide between sculpture and painting, Bunga’s deceptively delicate works are characterized by an intense study of the combination of color and materiality, while at the same time emphasize the performative aspect of the creative act. Bunga’s works on paper, which are closely related to his sculptures and installations, often involve overlays, whether of compositional elements in the paintings or sheets of translucent paper in the drawings. The analytic/descriptive result, like a photographic double-exposure, mimics the dual experience of memory and imagination underlying the sculpture.
Carlos Bunga, Mind awake, body asleep, 2021. Installation view Secession 2021, photo: Iris Ranzinger. Courtesy by Secession
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Carlos Bunga, Mind awake, body asleep, 2021. Installation view Secession 2021, photo: Iris Ranzinger. Courtesy by Secession
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Carlos Bunga, Mind awake, body asleep, 2021. Installation view Secession 2021, photo: Iris Ranzinger. Courtesy by Secession
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Carlos Bunga has had solo shows at Palacio de Cristal – Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2022); Secession, Wien (2021); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); MOCA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto (2020); Centro Internacional das Artes José de Guimarães (2019); MAAT – Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnologia, Lisbon (2019); Fundação Carmona e Costa, Lisbon (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2018); MACBA – Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2015); Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogota, 2015); Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (2015): Museo Amparo, Puebla, México (2014); MUAC – Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico D.F. (2013); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2012); Fundação Serralves, Oporto (2012); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2011); Miami Art Museum (2009) and MARCO – Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo (2009).
He was invited to participate in the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2015), 29th Bienal de São Paulo (2010), the Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa (2010), the 14th Biennale Internazionale di Scultura di Carrara (2010) and Manifesta 5, San Sebastian (2004). Bunga was awarded the International Art Prize at Grand Rapids, Michigan (2013) and was short-listed for Artes Mundi 6 Prize, Cardiff (2015).
His work is included in important collections such as The Museum of Modern Art (New York), Fundação Serralves (Oporto), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection (New York), Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Museum Haus Konstruktiv (Zurich), Pérez Art Museum (Miami), Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Museo Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon) or Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), among others.
Carlos Bunga, Home, 2022. Site-specific, CAM em Movimento, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Estação fluvial do Terreiro do Paço, Lisbon. Image courtesy by Fundação Caloust
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Carlos Bunga, Home, 2022. Site-specific, CAM em Movimento, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Estação fluvial do Terreiro do Paço, Lisbon
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Carlos Bunga, Mind awake, body asleep, 2021. Installation view Secession 2021, photo: Iris Ranzinger. Courtesy by Secession
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Carlos Bunga, Free Standing Painting #43, 2020. Latex and glue on felt. 195 x 89,9 x 1 cm
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Carlos Bunga, Skin Composition V, 2018. Glue on cotton. 102 x 82 cm
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Carlos Bunga, Free Standing Painting #28, 2018. Latex and glue on felt. 138 x 160 x 3 cm
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Carlos Bunga, Polychromatic Environment, 2020. Site Specific installation at Whitechapel, London, 2020. Photo: Nick Seaton
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