MARCO

Carlos Bunga (Porto, Portugal, 1976) came to international attention when his work was shown at Manifesta 5 in San Sebastián, Spain, in 2004. 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. 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 trained as a painter. His early works - oil on canvas - were often installed on specially selected walls of the city and he would then document the effect that exposing the paintings to the environment (climate, the passing of time, 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.

After studying Fine Arts at the Escola Superior de Arte e Design (ESAD) in Caldas da Rainha (Portugal), Carlos Bunga has continued with his training, awarded a visual arts grant by the Fundación Marcelino Botín (ISCP, New York, 2006-2007), and Residency Programs such as the Aldaba Art at Ciudad de México (2007) and Fundacion Ilidio Pinho at New York (2008). He has done solo shows of his work held at institutions such as Culturgest (Portugal, 2005) and Milton Keynes Gallery (UK, 2006); and with group exhibitions at the Artists Space (New York, 2005), San Diego Museum of Art (Farsites: Urban Crisis and Domestic Symptoms in Recent Contemporary Art, part of inSite_05, San Diego, 2005), New Museum (Unmonumental, The Object in the 21st Century, New York, 2007), Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno-IVAM (Contruir, habitar, pensar, Valencia, 2008) and Fundación Marcelino Botín (Low Key, Santander, 2008). At the last edition of Art Basel, his piece Ruins was included in the special projects section Art Unlimited.