Miquel Barceló

MIQUEL BARCELÓ ARTIQUES (Felanitx, Mallorca, 1957).
"Still life with grapes", 1985.
Oil on canvas.
-Work exhibited at the Gallery Yvon Lambert, 21 February-17 March 1987, Paris.
Presents on the back labels of the Gallery Gallery Yvon Lambert (Paris) and Lucie Weill-Seligmann (Paris).
Provenance: Gallery Lucie Weill Seligmann, Paris (as La Grappe) and Gallery Yvon Lambert, Paris (as Raisin).
Measurements: 51 x 83,5 cm; 73,5 x 107 cm (frame).
Miquel Barceló offers us in this 1985 painting a clear testimony of his unique visual language, characterized by an intense materiality and a constant exploration of nature and its transformations. The work features a palette dominated by earthy tones, grays and blacks, with rich textures that evoke eroded landscapes or decaying organic surfaces. Barceló's technique, which at this stage of his career approaches abstraction without completely abandoning figuration, is evident in the material treatment of the canvas: the paint seems to accumulate, scratch and wear away in different areas, generating a sensation of time and deterioration.
Two figurative elements emerge in the composition: a bunch of grapes, represented with dense black brushstrokes, and a structure of lines reminiscent of a schematic drawing or a calligraphic stroke. These elements, although partially absorbed by the pictorial texture, reinforce the artist's constant exploration of food, still life and the transience of everyday objects.
1985 was a crucial year in Barceló's career, marked by intense experimentation and travel that influenced his work. During this period, the artist was exploring the interaction between painting and matter, an interest that would later lead to his famous murals and ceramic works. This work is a reflection of that search, where landscape, texture and deterioration play a central role in the construction of his artistic imaginary.
A painter and sculptor, Barceló began his training at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma de Mallorca, where he studied between 1972 and 1973. In 1974 he made his individual debut, at the age of seventeen, at the Picarol Gallery in Mallorca. That same year he moved to Barcelona, where he enrolled at the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts, and made his first trip to Paris. In the French capital he discovers the work of Paul Klee, Fautrier, Wols and Dubuffet, as well as the "art brut", a style that will exert an important influence on his first paintings. During these years he reads extensively, and enriches himself with works as diverse as the writings of Breton and the surrealists, the "White Manifesto" by Lucio Fontana or the "Social History of Literature and Art" by Arnold Hauser. In 1976 he holds his first solo exhibition in a museum: "Cadaverina 15" at the Museum of Mallorca, consisting of a montage of 225 wooden boxes with glass lids, with decomposing organic materials inside. That same year, back in Mallorca, he joined the Taller Lunàtic group and took part in its social, political and cultural events. In 1977 he makes a second trip to Paris, and also visits London and Amsterdam. That same year he exhibits for the first time in Barcelona, and meets Javier Mariscal, who will become one of his best friends in the city. Together with him and the photographer Antoni Catany he participates, as a member of the group "Neón de Suro", in exhibitions in Canada and California, and collaborates with the publication of the magazine of the same name. It was also in 1977 when he received his first large-format pictorial commission: a mural for the dining room of a hotel in Cala Millor, Mallorca. The following year, at the age of twenty-one, he sells his first works to some collectors and galleries, and finally moves to Barcelona. His international recognition began in the early eighties, giving a definitive boost to his career after his participation in the São Paulo Biennial (1981) and the Documenta in Kassel (1982). In 1986 he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, and since then his work has been recognized through the most outstanding awards, such as the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes (2003) or the Sorolla Prize of the Hispanic Society of America in New York (2007). Barceló is currently represented in the most important contemporary art museums in the world, such as the MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Marugami Hirai in Japan, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Carré d'Art in Nimes, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.