The Museu de Mallorca (Museum of Mallorca) hosts until 21 September the exhibition “Bernardí Roig. Hem arribat a l’infern!” (Bernardí Roig. We Have Arrived in Hell!), a proposal that is part of the Biennal B, an initiative by the Consell de Mallorca and Es Baluard Museu d’Art Contemporani. The work reflects on the absence of the Bous de Costitx (Costitx Bulls), emblematic pieces of Talayotic culture, and was inaugurated yesterday, 11 September, coinciding with the Diada de Mallorca (Mallorca Day), in a large-scale event with a performance and batucada that transformed the museum into a striking audio-visual environment.
The installation, curated by Jackie Herbst and Sofía Borrás, features a nine-metre altar where plaster fragments —copies of the original heads preserved in the museum— coexist with dust, rubble, and sculptural remnants. A strobe light interrupts continuous perception and highlights the fragility of presence, creating a tension between what is visible and what is absent. According to Roig, “what we see is not what is there, but what is looking at us.”
Opening of the exhibition “Bernardí Roig. Hem arribat a l’infern!” at the Museu de Mallorca. Photos: Consell de Mallorca (Mallorca Council).
The president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, highlighted that “this exhibition invites us to look at our heritage symbols differently and to reflect on what is present and what is missing. The Bous de Costitx are an essential part of our identity, and through this installation Bernardí Roig offers us a poetic and unsettling journey that places Mallorca at the centre of contemporary artistic debate.”
The Bous de Costitx, Talayotic Icons
The Bous de Costitx are three bronze sculptures dating from the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, discovered in 1895 at the sanctuary of Son Corró (Costitx). They are currently housed at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de Madrid (National Archaeological Museum of Madrid), which has led to historical demands for their return to Mallorca. Highly realistic and detailed, these pieces stand out for the expressive strength of their snouts and nostrils, as well as the meticulous finishing on ears, veins, and fur. They are considered one of the jewels of Talayotic art.
The curators highlighted that Roig’s work functions as a grand still life of memory, where popular imagination, chance, and the claim for the return of the pieces converge in a narrative that questions the boundaries of representation.
Bernardí Roig, a multidisciplinary artist
The artist Bernardí Roig (right), alongside the Vice President of the Consell de Mallorca and Minister of Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, and the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés.
Bernardí Roig (Palma, 1965) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans sculpture, video, drawing, painting, and writing. His work focuses on themes such as isolation, desire, and the fragility of the human figure, with a language close to minimalism and conceptualism. Over his career, he has exhibited in international museums and institutions such as the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Triennale di Milano, the Centre Pompidou Málaga, and the Museo Arqueológico Nacional de Madrid. His pieces, unsettling and poetic, function as devices of solitude and reflection, and have been recognised with awards such as the Prix International d’Art Contemporain de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco (2003).
“Hem arribat a l’infern!” represents the final part of a cycle that Bernardí Roig has dedicated in recent years to the bronze bulls. Following “El laberinto de luz y la cabeza del Minotauro” (The Labyrinth of Light and the Minotaur’s Head) in the Centre Pompidou Málaga (2022) and “Caps [y] Bous. El tercer cuerno” (Heads [and] Bulls. The third horn) in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (2025), the proposal concludes in Mallorca, returning with strong resonance.
The project will conclude on 25 September, with a conference-performance by the philosopher and art critic Fernando Castro Flórez at the sanctuary of Son Corró (Costitx), the site of the original discovery.
Exhibition details
- Title: Bernardí Roig. Hem arribat a l’infern!
- Venue: Museu de Mallorca, Carrer de la Portella, 5, Palma
- Dates: 12–21 September 2025
- Special hours: 9:00 – 21:00 (closed Monday 15)
- Final activity: Conference-performance by Fernando Castro Flórez, 25 September, 19:00, at Son Corró (Costitx).
- More information at this link.
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