Miguel Palma

Miguel Palma (b.1964 Lisbon, Portugal) is a multi-media artist who lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. His art works explore the urgency of the technological progress through projects that embody dynamics of modern life. Selected exhibitions include the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Berardo Museum, Culturgest, National Museum of Contemporary Art - Lisbon; Serralves Museum - Oporto; Bloomberg Space - London; Warwick Arts Centre - Coventry; Prospect.1 - New Orleans Art Biennial; Location One, ISE Foundation - New York; Faulconer Gallery - Iowa; MUDAM - Luxemburg; Museu Pateo Herreriano, Laboral, Centro 2 de Mayo - Spain; Villa Arson and FRAC Limousin - France. Selected residencies include Location One, ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program) in New York; Headlands Center for the Arts and Montalvo Arts Center, California. His work is included in collections of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Portugal; the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; the GalicianCentre of Contemporary Art (CGAC), Spain; the Centre de Création Contemporain (CCC).   

Artist Statement:

"Since the early nineties I’ve been interested in exploring self-referential systems where the everyday space can be understood as an enclosed system in permanently mutation. From this approach different investigations took place, as each work has lead me into new subjects.

As an artist I've been also interested in exploring ideas related to value, authorship and especially to contemporary issues concerning the relation of technology and art. I'm interested in reflecting on the borders that could be created between them. This exploration has been crucial to reinventing the artistic process where the art piece is produced, not only circumscribed by the limits of the art world, but also by other additional fields.

Thus, my condition as an artist and as a producer is constantly being revisited. The use of the machine becomes a way distance myself from the piece's authorship. I like to look at it and think for instance that someone else could have produced it. At the same time this distance from the standard artist profile raises other questions that go further from this interest for the machine and the technological construction. It's not only about the use of technology on my pieces but also and mainly about getting involved with it as an engineer, as an architect, or just as a participating agent. The act of producing or dislocating objects from their original functionality has been also a way to reflect on that functionality and the reason of its existence. The value of the artistic object on the context of art and art market is also addressed.

From my early career up until now, my obsession for the machine is something that has been always present. I could almost assume that as a central element in my art practice. From this obsession for the vehicle as a utilitarian object or as an organic body, other investigations where added through times. For me, became important not only to look at it as a simple object of representation but as a materialization of my curiosity.

I seek to build a work in which the spectator could be absorbed into its private world. When I drive a car I’m not doing anything new but assuming that as an artist I can extend its meanings and confront others with those limits.

My interest in environment and eco-systems has also been dominant. The construction of mock-ups as a simulation of urban planning in which its failure is clearly visible reflects also my interest in systems in closed circuits, somehow condemned to exist on a repetition mode. In this sense, other spheres such as architecture, engineering, and contemporary technologies in general are combined with it."

For additional information about this artist, visit Mutual Art