Roberto Díaz studied at the Fine Arts School in Lisbon, where he specialised in painting. After working in paint in the early 1980s he subsequently diversified into the fields of sculpture and installations. His works feature persistent attention to the primordial forms of people's everyday living space (tables, chairs, doors, windows, etc.), depicted via lowly, industrial objects and materials in the form of fragments and remains removed from their settings and stripped of their functions as an expression of personal or collective memory. In the 1990s his work acquired a more poetic quality in relation to architecture as an exercise in resistance and a way of examining the anthropological condition of human beings today. His drawings and photos are closely linked to his work in sculptures and installations.
He has enjoyed a high international profile as one of the key Portuguese artists of the last few decades. He has exhibited at Documenta 9 (Kassel, Germany, 1992) and the São Paulo Biennial (1981, 1994 & 1998) and has represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale (1995, 1997 & 2003). There have been solo exhibitions of his work at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, 1994 & 2006), the De Appel (Amsterdam, 1996), the Folkwang Museum (Essen, Germany, 1996), the Serralves Foundation (Porto, Portugal, 1999-2000), the Kunstmuseum (Berne, 1999-2000 & 2004), the Ludwig Museum (Vienna, 1999-2000), The Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain museum in Bourgogne (Dijon, France, 2004), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2006), the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg, Germany, 2009) and The Arts Club (Chicago, USA, 2016).
Roberto Díaz studied at the Fine Arts School in Lisbon, where he specialised in painting. After working in paint in the early 1980s he subsequently diversified into the fields of sculpture and installations. His works feature persistent attention to the primordial forms of people's everyday living space (tables, chairs, doors, windows, etc.), depicted via lowly, industrial objects and materials in the form of fragments and remains removed from their settings and stripped of their functions as an expression of personal or collective memory. In the 1990s his work acquired a more poetic quality in relation to architecture as an exercise in resistance and a way of examining the anthropological condition of human beings today. His drawings and photos are closely linked to his work in sculptures and installations.
He has enjoyed a high international profile as one of the key Portuguese artists of the last few decades. He has exhibited at Documenta 9 (Kassel, Germany, 1992) and the São Paulo Biennial (1981, 1994 & 1998) and has represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale (1995, 1997 & 2003). There have been solo exhibitions of his work at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, 1994 & 2006), the De Appel (Amsterdam, 1996), the Folkwang Museum (Essen, Germany, 1996), the Serralves Foundation (Porto, Portugal, 1999-2000), the Kunstmuseum (Berne, 1999-2000 & 2004), the Ludwig Museum (Vienna, 1999-2000), The Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain museum in Bourgogne (Dijon, France, 2004), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2006), the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg, Germany, 2009) and The Arts Club (Chicago, USA, 2016).