Miquel Barceló was born on January 8th 1957 in Felanitx, Mallorca. He came into early contact with art through his mother who was an amateur painter. At the age of 15 he enrolled at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma de Mallorca for classes in drawing and modelling.
Two years later he had his first one-person show. He moved to Barcelona where he enrolled in the Sant Jordi School of Fine Arts. In 1974 he travelled to Paris for the first time.
Though he only attended classes in the early months of 1975, he read widely and absorbed the writings of Breton and the surrealists on art, Lucio Fontana’s White Manifesto and Arnold Hauser’s Social History of Art. In painting he is drawn to the work of Fontana and Rothko.
In 1976 he lives between Barcelona and Palma. During this period, the decomposition of matter occupies a central place in his concerns.
His first exhibition in Palma is at Galería 4 Gats, consisting mainly of small glass boxes containing organic material and other objects.
He received his first commission for a large painting: a mural for the dining room in a hotel in Cala Millor, Mallorca. He painted a seabed under the window line, marking a dividing line between the surface and the bottom of the sea which is visible from the dining room. He met Enrique Juncosa during the opening of the exhibition at Galería 4 Gats.
In 1978 he exhibited at Galería Sa Pleta Freda, Son Servera (Mallorca), with a series of canvases covered in paint to which he added organic elements, plus drawings and small boxes. For the first time a gallery bought a painting and sold work to a few collectors.
In the exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid commemorating the first fifty years of the MoMA he is particularly taken by paintings by Pollock, De Kooning, Ryman and Cy Twombly. He is 22 years old. He starts experimenting with the use of large quantities of paint on canvas which he then leaves outdoors in the elements to allow the appearance of all kinds of spontaneous reactions, such as rusting and cracking, that bring out the underlying layers. He also combines painterly materials with organic elements. His interest in Pollock leads him to borrow his “dripping” technique on canvases which he later covers with white paint. He made a series of painted books and one of iron which he exhibited the following year at Galería Metrónom.
In 1980 he settled in Barcelona. This was also the time when the first figurative images appeared in his paintings: columns of smoke, books, zoomorphic figures…
The leap abroad
His work sees an increasing consolidation of figuration with zoomorphic motives to the fore. At the same time, he works with collages of cardboard and drawings he had discarded which he sticks together, layering one on top of the other on the canvas. In October 1981 his work is on view in the 16th Sao Paulo Biennale, where he earned a name for himself internationally. In December he took part in “Otras Figuraciones”, organised by María de Corral at Fundación “La Caixa” in Madrid. Here Rudi Fuchs, director of Documenta VII in Kassel, saw his work and invited him to take part at Documenta the following year.
He is the only Spanish artist included in Documenta Kassel. His first one-person exhibition outside Spain is at the Axe Art Actuelgallery in Toulouse. There he meets Yvon Lambert, who offers him the chance to exhibit at his gallery in Paris, and also Jean-Louis Froment, director of CAPC Musée in Bordeaux who bought several works for the museum.
In 1983 Barceló moved to Naples to prepare an exhibition at the Lucio Amelio gallery. He had met the Italian gallerist in the ARCO art fair where he had bought all the works by Miquel Barceló on view at the booth of Galería Fúcares and he proposed creating a work conceived specifically for his foundation, to be made with ashes from Mount Vesuvius and local pigments similar to those used in the frescos at Pompeii.
In 1984 Barceló went to Portugal where he worked outdoors mixing paint with sand, algae and other material found on the beach.
He exhibits for the first time at Bruno Bischofberger’s galleryin Zurich. Bischofberger became his dealer from then on. He is invited to the Aperto at the Venice Biennale, where he coincided with Enzo Cucchi and Francesco Clemente. The chief curator of MoMA, Kynaston McShine, selected him for an exhibition. The goal was to present the most exciting artists of the moment. Barceló is the youngest of the painters chosen.
1985 is the year of his first individual museum exhibition, at CAPC in Bordeaux. In September he had an exhibition at Palacio de Velázquez in Madrid. This is the first time that the palace was used for a one-person exhibition.
The celebrated dealer Leo Castelli visited Barceló in Paris and offered to represent him in the USA.
Early distinctions. First trips to Africa
The Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid (now Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía) purchased “Big Spanish Dinner” in 1986. Commissioned by Pep Subirós, he spent the whole summer painting a twelve metre diameter dome for Mercat de les Flors, the new municipal theatre in Barcelona.
In November he goes to New York where he has his first exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery. After a series of works focused on the theme of light, his painting is gradually divested of all anecdotal and narrative elements.
The Spanish Ministry of Culture awards him its National Visual Arts Prize in 1986.
In 1988 he made his first trip to Africa. After crossing the Sahara desert he stays for a while in Gao (Mali). During this time Barceló travelled throughout Mali, Senegal and Burkina Faso. He created many works on paper using local pigments and fluvial sediments. Back in Europe, the desert landscapes and mirages become core images in his paintings. From this moment onwards he would divide his time between Paris, Mallorca and Mali.
In 1990 he spends two weeks in Coazhutte, in the Swiss Alps, at four thousand metres altitude, painting a series of landscapes with glaciers.
During the first part of the 1990s Barceló’s work is influenced by his trips to Africa. After a voyage down the Niger river, he made a series of canvases whose central motifs are the large boats on the Niger and life along the river. Furthermore, he experimented with the “participation” of termites in his work on paper. He begins his first bronze sculptures and a large part of his work would be with still lifes.
The Whitechapel Art Gallery in London organised a major survey of his work in 1994. Curated by Enrique Juncosa, the exhibition then toured to the IVAM in Valencia the following year coinciding with the artist’s participation in one of the group shows at the Venice Biennale of 1995.
Major exhibitions
In 1996, a joint exhibition at Galerie Nationale de Jeu de Paume and Centre Georges Pompidou overviews Barceló’s work over the previous decade. Two years later, another exhibition at Museo d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona surveys his work from the nineties.
The century comes to a close with a major exhibition at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris of over 100 ceramic works developed from his early ceramics.
In 2000 he is awarded the Medalla de Oro by the regional government of the Balearic Islands. The exhibition “Miquel Barceló, un peintre et la céramique” opens in September at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, in a wing of the Louvre.
He is named Doctor Honoris Causa by the University of the Balearic Islands. Barceló accepts the doctorate on the condition of undertaking a project on island of Mallorca: the refurbishment of the Chapel of St Peter in the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca.
During these years he travels continuously to Africa, and produces paintings on sheets and blankets. It is also a time of many distinctions and awards, like the National Visual Arts Prize of Catalonia (1999).
The century ends for Barceló at the age of 43 and with one of his most important commissions: the refurbishment of the Chapel of St Peter in the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca.
Latest decade
In 2003 Miquel Barceló received Spain’s most prestigious award, the Prince of Asturias Arts Prize. This was followed by others including the Sorolla Prize from the Hispanic Society of America in New York in 2007.
In 2004 Barceló is the first living contemporary artist to exhibit at the Louvre in Paris, where he exhibited his original watercolours created to illustrate Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”. This commission from the German publishers Bertelsmann was acknowledged as the Best Book in 2003 by the Ministry of Culture.
He continues working in the Cathedral of Palma de Mallorca. In 2007 he accepts his investiture as Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of the Balearic Islands.
The touring exhibition “Barceló” organised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs through SEACEX (State Society for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad) continues its tour, having visited Sao Paulo (Brazil), Hannover (Germany) and Mexico City.
In 2008, work created in Africa went on view in the exhibition “The African Work”, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin and then at CAC in Malaga. The curator of both projects was Enrique Juncosa.
On November 18th 2008, Sala XX, the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilisations Chamber at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, is officially opened. Barceló had started painting the enormous dome of the hall six months earlier. The project was carried out thanks to an agreement signed on February 28th by the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Miguel Ángel Moratinos. and the Secretary-General of the UN, Sergei Ordzhonikidze.
Miquel Barceló collaborates with Fundación Vicente Ferrer and Eyes of the World Foundation (an NGO fighting blindness in poverty-stricken areas). He also works on projects in Sahrawi refugee camps and in Mali.
In 2009 he is chosen to represent Spain at the 53rd Venice Biennale which opens on June 7th.