Miguel Branco
He studied painting at FBAUL; he is a professor at Ar.Co, Centro de Arte e Comunicação Visual, where he has been co-head of the Department of Drawing and Painting since 1994. He lives and works in Lisbon.
His most recent solo exhibitions include: 2015: Luz, Galeria Pedro Cera, Lisbon; The Silence of Animals, Schloss Ambras-Kunsthistorisches Museum, Innsbruck; Sombra, Carmona e Costa Foundation, Lisbon; Sala do Veado, Museu de História Natural e da Ciência, Lisbon; 2014: Terra, Galeria João Esteves de Oliveira, Lisbon; 2013: Ar, Galeria Belo-Galsterer, Lisbon. He has participated in three important international exhibitions of Portuguese art: “Portugal Agora, Portuguese Contemporary Art,” Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg, 2007; “Situation Zero, Recent Portuguese Visual Arts”, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, USA, 2001; “Tríptico, Europalia 91 – Portugal”, Museum Van Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent, Belgium, 1991.
His work is featured in the following collections: Ar.Co; Caixa Geral de Depósitos; CAM- Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; Collection of the European Parliament; Carmona e Costa Foundation; EDP Foundation; Luso-American Development Foundation; Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Funchal; Museu de Arte Moderna, Serralves Foundation.
Over three decades, the work of Miguel Branco has focused on the use of models from the History of Art. Such use, which largely draws from traditions considered of lesser importance such as peinture animaliére, still life, the object of common use or the use of extremely small scales, always arises through devices of dysfunctional nature. The historical elements are emptied out, moved from their original context and reused as parts of a new staging. Miguel Branco’s figures and objects are like motionless characters who, evoking the theatre of Beckett, stage emptiness itself.