Portugal & Germany, 1994
miguelwitzkepereira.com
Title 1: The Icebreakers
Title 2 : Wood on fabric with felt
Activating the audience is an important part of Miguel's practice in which sculpture and it's potential are pushed into the realm of situations and choreographed moments. As a child he would purposely create awkward moments. Apropos of nothing he might fall over just to generate a reaction. Rather than understanding this as a cry for attention what if we think of it as a considered negation of passivity. For Miguel object and body are the same. From this position sculpture can find form in a physical act as much as in a material body. Through techniques such as generating instructions on how the audience should interact with the work, he creates platforms in which performative dogmas and sculptural forms clash. Within these clashes the audience is free to explore and discover things for themselves. Through the versatile and unpredictable outcomes of his practice Miguel enacts a considered loss of control in both himself, the audience and the sculptures. (text written by Jacob Dwyer)
