TUNGA

BIBLIOGRAPHY ARTWORKS

Tunga was one of the leading Brazilian artists of his generation, best known for his daring, elaborate, and surrealist-tinged sculptures, installations, videos, and performances that dealt with subjects like desire, enigma, and rituals.

Born Antônio José de Barros de Carvalho e Melo Mourão in 1952 in the city of Palmares, Tunga was the son of the poet and journalist Gerardo Melo Mourão and the social activist Léa Barros. Tunga, like many other artists, trained as an architect but decided to pursue an artistic practice instead, although spatial concerns remained at the core of his work.

In 1974, at the tender age of 22, he had his first solo show, titled “Museu da Masturbação Infantil” (Museum of Childhood Masturbation), at the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. The subversive and psychologically loaded exhibition of drawings already displayed essential aspects of the oeuvre that he would continue developing over the next four decades.