Tunga and the Valparaíso School of Architecture in the 1960s-70s

Poetic Act as practice

Abstract

Tunga (1952–2016), born Antônio José de Barros Carvalho e Mello Mourão, is a prominent figure in contemporary art. Yet, despite his wide recognition, certain biographical aspects – such as his experiences in Architecture during the 1960s and 1970s – remain little explored. This work thus seeks to understand the artist’s early experiences, particularly those involving his contact with the School of Architecture of Valparaíso and the “Poetic Acts,” highlighting how – for both Tunga and the school – poetry, architecture, and visual arts converge into poetic practices. Practices that materialize in words, installations, and various acts, especially collective ones, that erupt into life through poetry. The investigation, therefore, offers a new perspective on the understanding of Tunga’s work, underscoring how transnational pedagogical experiences between Brazil and Chile, undertaken at that time and through ongoing exchanges, enriched his poetic practice. The research is grounded in a theoretical and methodological framework that privileges biographical and archival dimensions, drawing on François Dosse’s concept of “intellectual biography” and Roland Barthes’s notion of “biographeme.” The research corpus comprises a diverse set of sources from both the Tunga Institute archives and the archives of the School of Architecture and Design at PUCV.