After completing an on-site installation, Bunga turns to drawing to explore ideas that may have been hindered by the physical space. This phase of his artistic practice allows him to reflect on his work, share his process and document his temporary installations. He also uses the drawings to explore the connection between people and place and to consider the relationship between a subject and the means of documenting it.

Light will be the focus of Bunga’s installation at Sarasota Art Museum. The structure will showcase the natural light that floods the third-floor gallery from floor to ceiling. The work will also be void of additional colors not already found in the material, encouraging visitors to focus on the power of light interacting with architecture. “When I work in a space, I feel that I sculpt light with my hands — the immateriality of light that cannot be touched but felt. My work is always related to this idea of feeling,” Bunga said.

Bunga’s other works in the exhibition will draw attention to the metaphorical notion and physicality of light and emphasize the ways in which light and darkness coexist. Shadow (2002), a video work, uses light to trace the physical memory a building leaves behind. In Lamp (2002), another video piece, Bunga smashes a lightbulb with a hammer, gathers the broken pieces and reassembles them with glue and tape, illustrating concepts of destruction and reconstruction.

“Lamp powerfully encapsulates Carlos Bunga’s perspective of the world: its wholeness and brokenness and the presence of courageous, makeshift actions to rebuild a semblance of wholeness to find light and hope in the darkness.,” said Rangsook Yoon, Ph.D., Sarasota Art Museum’s senior curator. “Reassembling Spilt Light speaks to our time — a time that desperately requires us to reimagine the future. Bunga’s transformative installation and poetic, thought-provoking conceptual works invite viewers to consider how we shape our surroundings and how our surroundings shape us.”

Bunga lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. His work has been featured in notable exhibitions and at renowned institutions such as Pérez Art Museum Miami (2009); Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (2011); Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City (2013); Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zürich (2015); the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) in Barcelona, Spain (2015); Whitechapel Gallery in London (2020); Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto (2020); Secession in Vienna (2020); and Palacio de Cristal, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (2022).