Image: Es Baluard, Valencia
Es Baluard Museu d'Art Contemporani de Palma has announced ‘Albano Afonso. A Natureza’, a Biennal B exhibition scheduled for July 5 to October 25, 2026, at Convent de Sant Domingo in Pollença, Spain. The exhibition will open the previous evening, on July 4 at 8 pm, and is curated by Jackie Herbst.
The museum describes the project as an invitation to enter a forest-like environment rather than simply view an exhibition from the outside. In the presentation text, the walls of the historic church are lined with a green forest blanket, and the space is conceived as an ecosystem visitors move through. The show centres on Albano Afonso’s mobile installation ‘Em Estado de Suspensão’, which turns slowly and is activated by air and by the presence of people moving past it.
Afonso’s work in this exhibition is set in dialogue with blown glass pieces by Gordiola, the historic Mallorcan craft producer. The museum frames that encounter as a conversation between tradition and contemporaneity, and between different domains of knowledge. It also emphasises the role of light in the installation: hand-blown glass and mineral crystal are presented as materials that capture, alter and multiply light across the church interior.
According to the museum text, Afonso has spent more than three decades working with light as a central material in his practice. His sculptures are described as incomplete in darkness and dependent on light to exist. The presentation links this approach to European painting traditions, including baroque still-lifes and vanitas, while noting that forms which would be static on canvas are instead set in motion in space. The artist’s work is also presented as a way of exploring time, movement and identity through reflections, shadows and manipulated imagery.
Albano Afonso was born in São Paulo in 1964 and holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Faculdade de Artes Alcântara Machado, according to the museum. His practice includes photography, installation, projections, sculpture and objects. He lives and works in São Paulo, where he and artist Sandra Cinto direct Ateliê Fidalga, which the museum describes as a leading space for artist education and interchange in Latin America.
The exhibition page also places Afonso within an extensive international exhibition history, listing recent presentations at Itaú Cultural in São Paulo, 21C Museum in Louisville, Centro Cultural São Paulo, Fundação Gramaxo in Maia, Paço das Artes in São Paulo, Fundación Pablo Atchugarry in Miami, Appleton Square in Lisbon, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Brasília, and several other institutions in Europe, Japan and the United States. His work is also represented in collections including Instituto Inhotim, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Museu de Arte do Rio, Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade de São Paulo, Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Fondation CAB Brussel, 21C Museum, Fundación Arte Contemporánea – Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, and Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza.
‘Albano Afonso. A Natureza’ runs at Convent de Sant Domingo – Museu de Pollença from July 5 to October 25, 2026, with the opening scheduled for July 4 at 8 pm.
