Estate of Tunga

Creating contemporary Surrealist forms inspired by psychoanalysis, philosophy and alchemy, Tunga (1952-2016) embraced a multi- faceted practice spanning the various mediums of contemporary art. Born in Palmares, Pernambuco, Antônio José de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão (known mononymously as Tunga) came from a family of writers, artists and social activists. As a creative, intellectual group, Tunga’s family were forced into exile in Chile by the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1960s. Tunga later returned to Brazil where he pursued a degree in architecture while he developed his artistic practice, creating drawings and small-scale sculptures while editing magazines and contemporary poetry publications in Rio de Janeiro with fellow artists. Driven by research across many fields, his early works were marked by a deep interest in the symbolic and the mythological. From this beginning his practice evolved into complex installation-making in the 1980s with the incorporation of a wide range of materials including magnets, lightbulbs, electrical wires, copper, felt and rubber. The period also saw the emergence of the shapes and signs that would become iconic throughout his career, such as clubs, scalps, combs, bells, cauldrons, funnels and braids. Tunga’s sculptural investigations into the energetic relationships between materials intensified in the 1990s, marked by the introduction of magnets into his works, and the integration of elements of his installations with instaurations – a word he coined to describe his works activated by performance. Further fusing diverse elements in order to imbue them with new values, Tunga continued to explore new materials until his passing in 2016: between 2000 and 2016, his work was characterised by the emergence of such diverse elements as bells, bottles, chalices, jewellery, teeth, wings, portals, lights, tripods, and thimbles.

Since 2016, the Instituto Tunga – founded and directed by the artist’s son, Antônio Mourão – has worked to preserve, conserve, catalogue and disseminate his extensive work and memory. His work has been presented in major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo and Tate Modern, London, as well as the acquiring of Tunga’s work by institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Tunga was born Antônio José de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão in Palmares, Pernambuco, Brazil in 1952, and died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2016. His work has been exhibited extensively, with solo exhibitions including ‘Tunga: Me, You and the Moon’, Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM), São Paulo, Brazil (2023-24); ‘Tunga: conjunções magnéticas’, Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil (2021-22); ‘Tunga: Capillary Twins’, Tate Modern, London, UK (2018); ‘Tunga: o corpo em obras’, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (2017-18); ‘Tunga Psychoactive Gallery’, Inhotim Institute, Minas Gerais, Brazil (2012); ‘Tunga: Laminadas Almas - À Luz de Dois Mundos’, MoMA PS1, New York, USA (2007); ‘A la lumière des deux mondes: Une installation sous le pyramide’, Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (2005); ‘True Rouge’, Inhotim Institute, Minas Gerais, Brazil (2004); ‘Resgate’, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil (2001); ‘Tunga: Palindromo serie/Recent works’, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico (2001); ‘Tunga’, Recoleta Cultural Center, Buenos Aires, Argentina (1999); ‘Tunga 1977-1997’, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, USA (1997); ‘Tunga: Palindro Incesto’, The Contemporary Art Institute of New York, New York, USA (1995); ‘Option 37: TUNGA’, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, USA (1989); ‘Tunga’, Whitechapel Gallery, London, England (1989); ‘Xifópagas Capilares entre nosotros’, Museo de Bellas Artes Nível Jardin, Caracas, Venezula (1985); ‘Tunga: Ar do corpo’, Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1975). Tunga also participated in La Biennale di Venezia (1982, 95), São Paulo Biennial (1981, 87, 94, 98) and Documenta (1997). Tunga also participated in La Biennale di Venezia (1982, 95), São Paulo Biennial (1981, 87, 94, 98) and Documenta (1997).

Selected group exhibitions include ‘An Act of Seeing that Unfolds: The Susana and Ricardo Steinbruch Collection’, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (2022-23); ‘Troposphere’, Minsheng Museum, Beijing, China (2017-18); ‘Brasil, Beleza’, Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague, The Netherlands (2016); ‘Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America’, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA (2015-16); ‘Inside’, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2014); ‘Transformation’, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (2010); ‘The 80s: A Topology’, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2007); ‘Miguel Rio Branco—Tunga’, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy (2003); ‘Avant-Garde Walk a Venezia’, Venice, Italy (1995); ‘Time and Tide’, The Tyne International Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Newcastle, UK (1993); ‘Viva Brazil Viva’, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden (1991); ‘Festival of Utopia’, Alceo Amoroso Lima Cultural Center, Petrópolis, Brazil (1984); Art Institute of Valparaiso, Chile (1973).

Tunga’s artwork is featured in the permanent collections of museums and institutions including The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Pérez Art Museum, Miami; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston; in addition to galleries dedicated to his work at the Inhotim Institute, Minas Gerais, Brazil.