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If This Then That: Sculpture — John Chamberlain → Gonçalo Mabunda

If you understand why John Chamberlain’s crushed cars matter, you’ll recognize what Gonçalo Mabunda built from the weapons of a war.

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If This Then That: Sculpture — John Chamberlain → Gonçalo Mabunda IMG 0058

JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

John Chamberlain transformed crushed automobiles into sculpture, showing that industrial scrap could carry the same expressive force as bronze or marble. Rather than erase the material's past, he preserved its dents, folds and factory paint, allowing discarded steel to become an abstract language of movement and form.
John Chamberlain, S, 1959. Metal. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution.
Photograph by Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY 3.0

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If This Then That: Sculpture — John Chamberlain → Gonçalo Mabunda IMG 0060

GONÇALO MABUNDA

Working in Maputo, Gonçalo Mabunda transforms decommissioned weapons from Mozambique's civil war into masks, figures and thrones. Rifle stocks remain rifle stocks. Ammunition magazines remain visible. His sculptures do not disguise the history of their material. They ask what can be built once violence has ended.
Gonçalo Mabunda, Untitled (mask), 2017. Metal and wood. Minneapolis Institute of Art.
© Gonçalo Mabunda. Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art.
 
 

Both sculptures begin with metal that has already lived another life.

Chamberlain compresses automobile steel until it begins to suggest a face without ever becoming one completely. Mabunda does the opposite. His mask is unmistakably human because its features are assembled from gun parts, empty bullet casings and other metal components. One approaches portraiture through abstraction. The other reaches it through recognition.

 
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Mabunda developed his practice in the aftermath of Mozambique’s 1977–1992 civil war. Beginning in 1995, the Transforming Arms into Tools initiative exchanged surrendered weapons for agricultural, domestic and construction equipment. Some of the deactivated arms were passed to artists in Maputo, including Mabunda, who remade them as sculpture.

Both men work in scrap metal. The metal just carries very different histories.

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If This Then That: Sculpture — John Chamberlain → Gonçalo Mabunda IMG 0056 scaled

JOHN CHAMBERLAIN

Chamberlain's sculptures rarely settle into a single form. Twisted steel expands outward in every direction, preserving the force of collision long after the automobile has disappeared.

John Chamberlain, Bloodydrivetrain, 2007. Painted and chromium-plated steel.

Photograph by See-ming Lee / SML Photography, CC BY.

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If This Then That: Sculpture — John Chamberlain → Gonçalo Mabunda IMG 0065

GONÇALO MABUNDA

Mabunda also works through accumulation, but his material is organized rather than released. Rifles, pistols and ammunition become structure. Instead of suggesting impact, they construct authority.

Gonçalo Mabunda, Harmony Chair, 2009. Welded weapons, iron alloy, copper alloy, plastic, wood and paint. Brooklyn Museum, 2013.26.2.

© Gonçalo Mabunda. Photo: Brooklyn Museum.
 

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