Carlos Bunga (born 1976) is a Barcelona-based artist from Porto, Portugal. He received his Bachelors in Fine Arts from the Escola Superior de Arte e Design de Caldas da Rainha in 2003.^[1] He has exhibited across the Americas and Europe since the early 2000s.

Though trained as a painter, Bunga works primarily with ephemeral and mass-produced materials such as cardboard, tape, and household paint to create site-specific installations which often take the form of life-size architectural models.^[2] “Cardboard,” Bunga notes on his choice of materials, “is very easy to work with, very easy to manipulate, and it carries all those ideas about temporality, about story, about memory and about fragility…The use of materials like cardboard and tape also implies the temporary existence of the installations and changes their physical form."^[3] The genesis of his pieces emerges from moving through the spaces he works within, generating a dialogue with the architecture that will house the work.

Bunga also creates video works which document his performances of dismantling the installations, which he describes as a metaphorical way to “speed up the temporality of architecture with [his] own body,” opening up new possibilities through the process of unmaking and decay.^[4] Through his work, Bunga not only encourages viewers to rethink their experience of space and architecture, but also evokes the transient and fragile nature of urban structures.^[5]

He has participated in Manifesta 5 in San Sebastián (2004), inSite_05 at the San Diego Museum of Art (2005); 14th Carrara International Sculpture Biennial (2010), 29th Bienal de São Paulo (2010); and Artes Mundi 6 in Cardiff (2013).^[1]

• 2018: Carlos Bunga: Doubled Architecture, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
• 2017: Carlos Bunga: Absence, Alexander and Bonin, New York
• 2015: I am a Nomad, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich
• 2015: Capella, LA Capella, dels Àngels, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona
• 2013: Por amor a la disidencia, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City
• 2012: Ágora, Museu Serralves, Porto
• 2011: Carlos Bunga, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
• 2010: The Temporality of Space, Espaço Avenida, Lisboa Architecture Triennial
• 2009: Marxitecture, Krome Gallery, Berlin
• 2006: Carlos Bunga, Milton Keynes Gallery

• 2016: Materiais Transitórios – Núcleo de Escultura da Colecção da Fundação PLMJ, Sociedade Nacional de Belas Artes, Lisbon
• 2015: The State of the Art of Architecture, Chicago Architecture Biennial
• 2014: Beyond the Supersquare, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York
• 2012: Ruins in Contemporary Art, Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara
• 2009: Time as Matter, MACBA, Barcelona
• 2007: Unmonumental, The Object in the 21st Century, New Museum, New York
• 2005: Farsites: Urban Crisis and Domestic Symptoms in Recent Contemporary Art, San Diego Museum of Art
• 2005: Things Fall Apart All Over Again, Artists Space, New York

• Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
• Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres
• Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou
• Banco Espirito Santo Collection, Lisbon
• Fundação Ilidio Pinho, Lisbon
• Fundação PLMJ, Lisbon
• Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
• Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Móstoles
• Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, New York
• Fundação Serralves, Porto
• Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander
• Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo
• Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich

• Bunga, Carlos. Time / Temporality. Cru Editions, Barcelona 2017
• Bunga, Carlos. DNA. Artphilein Books, Lugano, Switzerland 2015 ISBN 978-8-8940-8430-6
• Jecu, Marta. Architecture and the Virtual. Intellect, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2015 ISBN 978-1-7832-0945-3
• Gonzales, Elyse A. The Stumbling Present: Ruins in Contemporary Art. ex. cat. Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara 2013 ISBN 978-0-9420-0676-6
• Carlos Bunga, Sonae/Serralves Project, Serralves Museum, Porto 2012 ISBN 978-3-943514-24-7
• Bunga, Carlos. A Temporalidade do espaço, Athena, Lisbon 2010 ISBN 978-9-8931-0011-0
• Unmonumental. ex. cat. New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York 2007 ISBN 978-0-7148-6310-8
• Carlos Bunga, Milton Keynes Project. Milton Keynes Gallery, Central Milton Keynes 2006 ISBN 978-0-9553-4400-8
• Carlos Bunga. Culturgest, ex cat. Porto 2006

• Bunga at Alexander and Bonin

Category: 1976 births Category: Portuguese artists Category: Contemporary artists Category: Installation artists