Carlos Bunga, installation

This Portuguese artist first came to prominence in the early 2000s with ephemeral interventions. The material he typically uses, cardboard, allows him to exploit relatively opposing qualities, such as malleability, hardness, strength and fragility. Bunga fabricates architectural-sculptural devices that respond to the structural elements of the buildings he intervenes in. Most of his works are, therefore, responses to existing buildings. Their execution, which requires great physical effort, is never preceded by preparatory drawings, but rather involves cultivating intuition and chance.

For his intervention at the Miró Foundation, he proposes to address the ever-pressing theme of housing and its growing precarity, prompted by news reports in the press from outside the islands. The use of diverse materials, always in relation to the territory where he carries out his interventions, will personalise his installation.

His solo exhibitions include those at the Miami Art Museum (Miami, 2009); the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, 2010; the Hammer Museum (Los Angeles, 2011); Serralves Museum (Porto) and Pinacoteca of São Paulo (2012); MUAC (Mexico City, 2013); Haus Konstruktiv Museum (Zurich, 2015); Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional, Bogotá and the United States Architecture Biennial in Chicago, highlighting the intervention in the Capella dels Àngels at MACBA in 2026 and at the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid, of the MNCARS, in 2022.

Biography

Carlos Bunga (1976 Porto) studied at ESAD in Caldas da Rainha, Portugal, and lives in Barcelona. He often uses common materials such as cardboard, adhesive tape, and fabric to create his installations. Straddling the line between sculpture and painting, his seemingly delicate and fragile works highlight the performative aspect of the creative act.