Honestly, I just stumbled upon Miguel Palma’s name scrolling through art feeds yesterday. Saw some weird metal sculptures made from bike parts and car bits. Thought “huh, that’s different.” Decided I’d try to understand his stuff fast during my coffee break this morning.
Opened my laptop at the cafe while the espresso machine screamed. Googled “Miguel Palma artist.” First shocker? Hundreds of pieces. Random stuff everywhere. Cars hanging from ceilings, weird machines scribbling things, even old boats turned into… something else. Felt totally lost at that point.
So I picked just the car ones for now. Pulled up images. Weird metal beasts. Then found one video interview – dude barely talks! Just shows his messy Lisbon warehouse. Saw him weld a bike handle onto what looked like scrap metal from a junkyard. Couldn’t help but think “man, hope he’s got good health insurance messing with that.”
What actually connects his work?
Scrolled like mad trying to find a common thread. Realized:
- None of his machines actually work. Like, the car engines don’t run. Pointless engineering.
- He rebuilds old garbage – like stuff you’d find thrown out on the curb.
- A dark, grungy vibe in everything. No happy rainbows here.
The lightbulb moment: This ain’t about pretty art. It feels like a big “eff you” to our throwaway culture and mindless tech worship. Saw one piece where he glued old car logos onto this giant spinning junk pile – almost laughed. Felt so savage.
The Actual Exploration Attempt
Spent maybe 3 minutes jumping between these weird things:
- That scribbling machine drawing nonsense lines on a wall.
- The floating “Rapture” car – genuinely creepy.
- His childhood bed welded onto a metal frame. Just why?
Got distracted when my coffee got cold. Poured more milk. Thought about buying stuff online. Felt weirdly guilty looking at Palma’s recycled junk.
Conclusion & Reality Check
5 minutes up? Nope, still confused. Palma’s world is messy and overwhelming. You don’t “get” it fast. But the vibe? That stuck. Felt like a warning about buying too much plastic crap, about tech promises falling apart. Made me side-eye my cheap phone charger.
Would I buy his stuff? Hell no – too big, too rusty, scared it’d collapse. But his weird junk piles made me think harder about my own trash than any boring recycling poster ever did. That’s probably his win. Took my coffee cup back inside thinking about the junk drawer I really need to clean out.
