Exhibitions of Carlos Bunga, Ana Santos and Robotics at MAAT
An exhibition that gives a great overview of Carlos Bunga’s work, unpublished works by Ana Santos and a show about robotics will open to the public on Wednesday at the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon.
The exhibition ‘The Architecture of Life. Environments, Paintings and Films’, with sculpture and painting by Carlos Bunga, which will remain until May 20 in the museum, curated by Iwona Blazwick, presenting a set of works that suggest architecture as a body and mental space, according to the MAAT.
“My project is a kind of architecture, not a real space, but a mental idea,” describes a text by the artist born in Porto in 1976.
The exhibition begins with a small model of social housing where the artist grew up, starting a journey from the miniature to the monumental.
Using only card and ink, Carlos Bunga “builds architectural models, pieces of furniture such as sculptures and paintings as immersive environments,” according to the MAAT.
“Animated by films of his actions and performances, as well as documentation of a decade of works, Bunga explores states of destitution and nomadism, the nature of experience space, and the creative and symbolic potential of a ruin, ” the text added.
Carlos Bunga graduated from the School of Arts and Design (ESAD) in Caldas da Rainha, studied in New York and won the EDP Novos Artistas award in 2003.
His work is usually created through interventions in previously chosen places, in which he modifies the constructions with cardboard, paint and adhesive tape.
MAAT will also present a set of unpublished works by Ana Santos, distinguished in 2013 with the EDP Novos Artistas Award.
Entitled ‘Anathema’, the exhibition fits into the expanded field of sculpture – or, more specifically, the production of objects – based on a practice based on ‘the search for a very particular state of attention’.
“Promoting the use of sensibility and intuition as instances that allow us to underline the uniqueness of the creative act, its pieces result from a process of reflection on the formal, functional, morphological or chromatic characteristics of certain materials or objects encountered and the relationships that they might want to test or establish, ” describes the museum.
‘Hello, Robot’ will also be presented at the MAAT to examine the current world of robotics, with more than 200 pieces of design and art, robots used at home, assisted care and industry, as well as computer games, and media facilities.
The goal is to demonstrate the vast array of formats that robotics adopts today and alert us to the ethical, social and political issues associated with it, raising the question: “Does it contribute to improving our world?“
