This exhibition was driven by a desire to re-exhibit Miguel Palma’s work ‘Exposição de Ocasião (Mil Contos de Publicidade)’, which became a part of the MNAC collection following its initial exhibition in 2000. This completely unique work subverts the parameters in which the world of contemporary art operates, reflecting ironically on the patterns which standardise the art market, format the socio-institutional exhibition circuit and shape the behaviour of professional artists.

Continuing on its same provocative path and being presented alongside the re-exhibited ‘Exposição de Ocasião (Mil Contos de Publicidade)’ is Transgenic Gatherer, an installation of ready-mades that encompass a panoply of stories. The public is thus invited to experience a part of the universe created by the objects gathered by the artist in his  studio which exemplifies the work’s referential context. This exhibition is also being held in parallel with the complementary exhibition AZ.Miguel Palma, the first solo exhibition of the artist’s drawings, currently open at the MAAT. The title of the exhibition has a double meaning: on the one hand, Miguel Palma is nothing if not a gatherer, following his instinctive interest in the historical context, the semiotic relevance and the hermeneutic potential of the pieces he collects and acquires rather than any pre-defined criterion as a collector; on the other hand, although the pieces are not living organisms, at the artist’s intervention and modification their original ‘genetics’ are altered and they gain ‘new life’ and semantic dimensions.

Transgenic Gatherer highlights the creative and artistic essence of Miguel Palma, revealing his spirit as the perennial enfant terrible that he is.

Adelaide Ginga