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CARLOS BUNGA THE ELBA BENÍTEZ PROJECT. 2005 13th April 21st May Carlos Bunga (Oporto 1976) came to international attention when his work was shown at Manifesta 5 in San Sebastián, Spain, in 2004. His short career began in 2003 when, after finishing his degree at Escola Superior de Arte e Design at Caldas da Rainha in Portugal, he won the Premio EDP Novos Artistas, the most prestigious award for young artists in Portugal. That same year, the artist exhibited one of his installations at the Serralves Museum in Porto. The exposure given to his work at Manifesta 5 brought with it the opportunity to participate in numerous projects outside Portugal. Among them is The Elba Benítez Project. Bunga uses materials such as pressed cardboard, paints and wrapping tape to build rooms that extrude like outgrowths stuck onto existing constructions or architectures. Bunga’s construction process which though carefully planned leaves a number of choices to be made during the production stage is documented systematically and thoroughly by a photographer (Luis Asín Studio for The Elba Benítez Project). The end result of his intervention on the space reflects some stylistic affinities with Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, or Gordon Matta Clark’s work. Carlos Bunga began work on the inner space of the Galería Elba Benítez on the 16th of March. The artist’s intervention, which lasted until Sunday 10th of April, gradually transformed the entire layout of the gallery. Without any assistance, he built a complex place of interlinking structures supporting and holding each other together; a space into which the light filtered dimly through chimneys or shafts running from the ceiling towards the floor of, each one of them set at a different height. Time became manifest in the space as its progressive transformation was documented by the camera of the Luis Asín Studio. This new place a house within a house- invites the visitor to explore associations with other familiar places, imagined or experienced previously. The materials employed to build the temporary structures are designed to blend together well with the original structures of the gallery’s rooms. For the visitor, however, this fusion, giving rise to a new hybrid body, happens quite imperceptibly. The paint, applied at the final stage of the intervention, signals an end to its spatial expansion. The act of painting heralds a conclusion. From the caved-in ruins of the structure that was built up painstakingly over weeks, a new place is reborn the one that is now on display to visitors infused with paints, colours and light. Carlos Bunga trained as a painter. His early works oils on canvas- were often installed on specially selected walls of the city where he lived as a student. He would then document the effect that exposing the paintings to the environment (climate, weather, pollution) had on them. Following this experience he became more interested in the buildings themselves and in the walls, the structures and the spaces surrounding those painting. Before embarking upon The Elba Benítez Project, Carlos Bunga had an
exhibition at the alternative venue W139, in Amsterdam, in autumn 2004. His
upcoming projects for 2005 include participating at the Artists Space, in
collaboration with the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College NYC, in
the group show Things Fall Apart All Over Again. He also has been selected
to take part in Insite 05, San Diego in August. At the end of 2005 he will
have a solo exhibition at Culturgest, Porto. With the support of: Gallery opening times: Tuesday to Saturday from 11.00 to 14.00 Forthcoming exhibition: David Goldblatt. PHE05 For more information: Pia Ogea; email: piaogea@elbabenitez.com |
