Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

Comida quemada [Burnt Food]

Image caption
MIQUEL BARCELÓ

Comida quemada [Burnt Food]

  • 1985
  • Oil on canvas
  • 300 x 292 cm
  • Cat. P_443
  • Acquired in 1990
By:
Frederic Montornés

Miquel Barceló's creative energy is inexhaustible in terms of form, concept, material and reflection. He is the very paradigm of a creative artist, and feels called upon to do all that he can to restore painting to its deserved place in the face of a surfeit of political/concept art works. At the start of his career his work was influenced by Paul Klee, Jean Dubuffet and the art brut style. Later influences included American abstract expressionists but also Lucio Fontana, Diego Velázquez, the arte povera movement, concept art and the many written works that he devoured as if there was no tomorrow. Barceló soon shifted towards a style reminiscent of neo-expressionism and towards a wide range of techniques and materials in the conception of his works, though he gradually settled into the use of palpably organic media. He frequently sought inspiration in the classics and in themes involving the exploration of landscapes, urban interiors and still-lifes, and embarked on a process of investigation and creation based on total freedom of movement across the surface of large-scale canvases. What he was doing was not just painting but what would nowadays be called a 'performance'.

These three large-format works by Barceló were produced in the mid 1980s, in the heady period marked by his first solo exhibition at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York. It was a time when he was beginning to experiment directly with architectural elements and his works were starting to include glaze, superimposition and an abundance of materials which he employed to create a surprising appearance of transparency. They reflect his wish to convey the idea that over and above the theme of each picture, what really interested him was that his painting should be seen as the ultimate expression of painting itself.

The works in question show his shift towards figurative art, his experimentation with collages in paper and cardboard and his desire to observe his immediate surroundings (which is perhaps why he gave them such descriptive titles). They not only reflect the substance of the everyday interior spaces in which he was working but also highlight the depth of his reflections on the practical aspects of painting. Compared to the explosive style of his previous period, they are calmer, subtly less expressive but nonetheless just as firmly established between the margins of abstraction and expressiveness. The figurative references that they contain are both surprising and precise in their simplicity, frankness and technical prowess.

In an article on Miquel Barceló, Pilar Parcerisas writes that his most frequent themes in that period included 'the figure of the painter in his workshop (as a self-referential reflection), marinas and boats, still-lifes (as an allegory for the organic), books and libraries (as a revindication of knowledge), the architecture of the great halls of the Louvre (as an exploration of art through the ages) and kitchens and stoves (as a chemical laboratory which in turn becomes a metaphor for painting), which can take matter through a metamorphosis capable of turning shit into gold'.

Frederic Montornés

 
By:
Roberto Díaz
Miquel Barceló
Felanitx (Balearic Islands) 1957

Miquel Barceló is a multi-faceted artist. He has been one of Spain's most significant artists since the 1980s and one of those with the highest international profile. He trained initially at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma (1972-1973) then moved on to the School of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona in 1974, though he abandoned his studies shortly afterwards. He joined the provocative conceptual art group known as Taller Llunàtic ['Lunatic Workshop'] and in 1976 staged an exhibition at the Museum of Mallorca under the title 'Cadaverina 15' that featured a number of boxes containing blends of pigments and decomposing materials. He has been working on the metaphorical potential of materials ever since. With the resurgence in popularity of pictorial art in the late 1970s, and with a broad raft of influences ranging from art brut, US action painting and new German expressionism to the Italian transavantgarde movement, Barceló joined artists such as José María Sicilia as a leading exponent of painting based on material sensitivity. His paintings in this early period are large in format and feature animal themes. In 1982-83 he shifted towards a style more closely linked to tradition, with recurring motifs such as still-lifes, libraries, museums and cinemas depicted via densely-filled, forced perspectives and lit after the manner of chiaroscuro.

His frequent travels, especially his discovery of Africa in 1988 during a trip to Mali that lasted several months, turned his subsequent output into a continual reflection on nature, the passage of time and primal forms of life, in works shorn of all excesses in which there is a constant study of the effects of light on his subjects. Over the course of his career he has also worked in drawing, sculpture, ceramics and graphic art. In the past few decades he has received major official commissions, including the reform of the 'Santísimo' chapel at Mallorca Cathedral (2004-2007) and the ceiling of the Human Rights and Civilisations Room at UN Headquarters in Geneva (2008).

Barceló's international career has been outstanding, starting with his participation in the São Paulo Biennial (1981). He was then selected to take part in Documenta 7 (Kassel, Germany, 1982) and in the 'Aperto' [Open] section of the Venice Biennale (1984). This marked the start of more or less continual appearances at exhibitions at top-ranking international venues such as the CAPC - Musée d'art contemporain in Bordeaux (1985), the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London (with his first retrospective) and the Valencia Institute of Modern Art (1994), the Pompidou Centre and the Jeu de Paume in Paris (1996), the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (1998), the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid (1999), the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo [‘Sao Paulo State Picture Gallery’] (2003), the Louvre in Paris (2004), the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and the Contemporary Art Centre in Malaga (2008), and culminating in his selection as Spain's representative at the Venice Biennale in 2009. 2016 saw exhibitions of his work at the Musée Picasso [‘Picasso Museum’] and the National Library of France in Paris. He has also received distinctions including Spain's National Award for Plastic Arts (1986) and the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts (2003), and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona in 2012.

Roberto Díaz

 
«20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Sala de Exposiciones de la Estación Marítima Xunta de Galicia (La Coruña, 1990). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Palacio del Almudí (Murcia, 1990). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Sala Amós Salvador (Logroño, 1990). «20 Contemporary Spanish Painters in the Banco de España Collection», Museo de Navarra (Pamplona/Iruña, 1990-1991).
Vv.Aa. 20 pintores españoles contemporáneos en la colección del Banco de España, Madrid, Banco de España, 1990. Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 2.