Michiel Alberts works with different media within one project: Performance, Film, Photography and Drawings. He focusses upon the personal, an inner urgency of the momentum in order to transform it into a larger common abstract state. In his work he is in search of iconic images of current human condition. Through duration and repetition, he is inviting time as layers in his work. In his performances it leads to long time or to repetitive actions. With drawing it can lead to series of works as a time frame, or to one performative drawing action. Here it becomes important in how to relate and not only in whatto relate to within a work. Process becomes more relevant than content, and senses more relevant than concepts. Another key element in his work is the relation and presence of void or rather (a Japanese term) the arrival of ‘MA’: a manifestation of emptiness, as an experience.
‘My physical presence functions as a performative tool to question human conditions and its relations to cosmic order, time and landscapes. Through forms of abstraction I want to bring my content from a specific happening, or a specific social context to a larger existential scenery.’
From 2019 onwards, he is working on the project; New Days to Come, resulting in films, performances, drawings and photographic work. In 2019 he performed: Counting Numbered Days, in front of the doorsteps of the S.M.A.K. for the 20 - year anniversary. His film: Another Gate Before the Law, was selected for Rencontres Internationales, in Paris and Berlin in 2018. The Artist participated in several group exhibitions. ‘Part 1&2, The Introduction’, S.M.A.K. Gent, Belgium (2015, 2013). ‘Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt’ at Ludwig Forum Aachen, Germany (2012) and at Extra City Antwerp, Belgium (2012), ‘A Serpentine Gesture and Other Prophecies’, FRAC Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain de Lorraine, Metz, France, (2011). The artist also performed A Warm Salute at El Manifesto De Santiago at Matucana, curated by Philippe Van Cauteren, Santiago, Chile, (2007).
Michiel Alberts is currently teaching Body & Mind, at Design Academy Eindhoven and has been a Visiting Lecturer (2015-2017,) and Laureate at the H.I.S.K. (2008). He also completed a Master of Arts at Dasarts in Amsterdam (2005) and completed the Acting School of Maastricht (1997). He lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.
