Carlos Bunga, Agora, 2012, Site-specific installation at Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves, Porto, Cardboard, tape, latex paint and glue, Courtesy of the artist, Photo: Filipe Braga
Carlos Bunga, Photograph by Bruno Lopes, 2019. Courtesy of EDP Foundation.
Carlos Bunga. Photograph by Bruno Lopes, 2019.
Courtesy of EDP Foundation.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Agora at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 2012. Cardboard, tape, latex paint and glue. Photograph by Filipe Braga. Courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Agora at Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal, 2012.
Cardboard, tape, latex paint and glue. Photograph by Filipe Braga. Courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Under The Skin at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Illinois, USA, 2015. Cardboard, tape, latex paint and glue. Photograph by Steve Hall. Courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Under The Skin at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, Illinois, USA, 2015.
Cardboard, tape, latex paint and glue. Photograph by Steve Hall. Courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Psychological Spaces at Secession, Wien, 2021. Cardboard, tape and glazings. Photography by Iris Ranzinger. Courtesy of Secession, Wien.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Psychological Spaces at Secession, Wien, 2021.
Cardboard, tape and glazings. Photography by Iris Ranzinger. Courtesy of Secession, Wien.
Carlos Bunga. Video stills from Lamp, 2002. Single channel video, color, sound, loop (1 min 34 sec). Courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Bunga. Video stills from Lamp, 2002.
Single channel video, color, sound, loop (1 min 34 sec). Courtesy of the artist.
Carlos Bunga poses with some of his works in his studio in Mataró, 2020. Photograph by Xavier Cervera. Courtesy of LA VANGUARDIA Magazine.
Carlos Bunga poses with some of his works in his studio in Mataró, 2020.
Photograph by Xavier Cervera. Courtesy of LA VANGUARDIA Magazine.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Home at CAM in Motion, Lisbon, 2022. Cardboard, tape, glazings and container. Photography by Pedro Jafuno. Courtesy of Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian.
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Home at CAM in Motion, Lisbon, 2022.
Cardboard, tape, glazings and container. Photography by Pedro Jafuno. Courtesy of Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian.

Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation
by Carlos Bunga

July 23 - October 29, 2023

Carlos Bunga is a multimedia artist internationally renowned for his imposing, site-responsive installations constructed with mundane, everyday materials, such as cardboard and masking tape. Originally trained as a painter, Bunga has developed a signature artistic language, “expanded painting,” which hybridizes and deconstructs the boundaries of painting, sculpture, architecture, and performance. Born into an Angolan refugee family in the Portuguese city of Porto, Bunga draws his inspiration from his makeshift childhood surroundings in deteriorating government housing. Employing a poetic approach across various mediums, he creates emotionally resonant and multivalent works. They not only invite the audience to question their position in the world around them, but also reflect on such timely topics as urban decay, migration, and displacement.

For this solo exhibition, Bunga created a temporary cardboard structure in the 30-foot-high Koski Gallery located on the Museum’s third floor. Beginning and ending as a dialogue with the existing architecture, this installation transforms the gallery’s spatial configuration for the duration of the exhibition. By deploying light as his primary conceptual basis, just as James Turrell has done before him, Bunga explains that he sculpts light, which cannot be touched, but only felt viscerally.

Accompanying Bunga’s site-responsive structure are selected photographs, videos, and paintings that further showcase the notion of light as a physical and phenomenological component, as well as a metaphor for reflection and hope in his own body of work. The exhibition also includes a set of drawings created after completing his onsite work. This post-installation phase of Bunga’s artistic practice allows him to reflect on the physical and spatial constraints that may hinder his creative process and conceptual scope. Bunga’s transformative installation and poetically resonant images invite visitors to consider how we shape and are shaped by our surroundings, to contemplate their ephemerality, and to attend to light in a time of darkness.

Bunga has had numerous solo and group exhibitions at notable art institutions worldwide, including Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2022); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (2020); and Secession, Vienna (2020), to name only a few. Bunga lives and works in Barcelona, Spain.
This exhibition is organized by Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design and curated by Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., senior curator, Sarasota Art Museum.
This exhibition is made possible, in part, with generous support from:
Platinum Sponsor
Shari and John Hicks

Silver Sponsors
Marge and Leon Ellin
Judy and Fred Fiala
Keith Monda and Veronica Brady

Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma
Carlos Bunga. Installation view of Reassembling Spilt Light: An Immersive Installation by Carlos Bunga at Sarasota Art Museum. 2023. Courtesy of the artist. Photo Ryan Gamma

Programs

Blue Star Museums Program

Sarasota Art Museum is a Blue Star Museum

Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (SAM) is pleased to participate in Blue Star Museums, a program that provides free admission to currently serving U.S. military personnel and their families during the summer. The 2026 program will begin on Armed Forces Day, Saturday, May 16, 2026, and end on Labor Day, Monday, September 7, 2026.

Skyway 2027 Logo

Call to Artists Announced for Tampa Bay Area Exhibition ‘Skyway 2027: A Contemporary Collaboration’​

Five regional art museums, the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg; The John and
Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota;
the Tampa Museum of Art; and the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, are pleased to
announce a call to artists for “Skyway 2027: A Contemporary Collaboration”, the fourth iteration of the exhibition
celebrating the diversity and talent of artistic practices in the Tampa Bay area and beyond.

Sol LeWitt (1928 - 2007) Loopy Doopy, Blue/Red, 2000 Oil-based woodcut 20 5/8 × 28 5/8 in. (52.3 × 72.6 cm) New Britain Museum of American Art, Gift of Sol LeWitt © Estate of Sol LeWitt 2025

Sarasota Art Museum to Present Major Survey of Prints by Conceptual Art Pioneer Sol LeWitt

Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (SAM) is pleased to present “Beautiful Ideas: The Prints of Sol LeWitt,” on view from May 17 through October 25, 2026. This exhibition explores the extensive printmaking career of Sol LeWitt (1928–2007), a leader of the American Minimalism and Conceptual art movements who famously declared that “the idea becomes a machine that makes the art.”

Woman at a pool club posing with two men playing pool in the background

Sarasota Art Museum Announces its 2026-2027 Season Exhibition Schedule

Sarasota Art Museum of Ringling College of Art and Design (SAM) announces its 2026-2027 season, featuring a lineup of seven exhibitions including works by some of the most beloved and influential photographers of the 20th-century, award-winning glass artists, a father and son artistic lineage, multiple Ringling College of Art and Design talents and more.