In his first ever exhibition in Portugal, the Peruvian artist, JOSÉ CARLOS MARTINAT (1974) operates a reconfiguration of Baginski, Galeria/ Projectos' exhibition space, by appropriating and subtracting from it chunks of matter, which are later displayed. Working with issues such as vandalism, appropriation, and power, the work of Martinat perceives the physical space of the exhibition as simultaneously raw matter, context, process and final product. This autophagic circularity works toward a self referential reflection on the nature of the legitimizing codes of contemporary art. The exhibition apparatus, formally aseptic but inevitably embedded in ideology, is thus skinned and dissected, deformed and disfigured, making visible what was previously neutral in an exercise of desacralization of the very place of art.

JOSÉ CARLOS MARTINAT has participated in several solo and group exhibitions, which include the 9th Shanghai Biennial, China (2012), the 7th Mercosul Biennial, in ... 2009 (Brazil), and the 2nd San Juan Polygraphic Biennial (Puerto-Rico, 2007). His work is represented in several private and institutional collections such as TATE Museum, London, UK, MALI - Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru, and MALBA - Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina.