In the world of art and artists, everyone knows Miquel Barcelò ! But this is probably not the case for all those who do not immerse themselves in this small world with well-defined codes and established signs of recognition, considered as self-evident.
A figure of contemporary creation, Barcelò, like his friend Mariscal, emerged in the 1980s in Barcelona and quickly established himself on the international scene. He caught the attention of the famous New York gallerist, Léo Castelli, and could have followed the trajectory of a new international art star. He made a completely different choice and decided to settle in Africa.
“ In Gao, I was immediately dazzled. Everything is so radical. And the beauty of the river. The car was filled with colors, pigments, blues, reds, blacks, whites, I was twenty-seven years old, it was a cleansing of the mind and everything. Then, when I arrived in Dogon country, it was a revelation .” This is how Barcelò recounts, in a masterful book “ De la vida mia[1] ”, his initiatory encounter with the African world.
He comes from Majorca and is deeply rooted in the very essence of this land and sea, of this middle of the world, the Mediterranean, which he does not separate from the African world, and in particular from Dogon country. It is precisely there that he found himself, where his creative sap did not disperse in vain, internationalized attempts, in artificial and manufactured art, good for sale in the great galleries around the world. He digs into his own uniqueness, coming from Majorca, and explores a whole marine universe, with explosive jubilation, a shared effervescence.
One can almost sense the taste of sea urchins or the breath of morays in his canvases, in his jubilant paste, in his bold and sovereign strokes. The world of the sea comes to us, in its vertigo, in all its comings and goings that testify to a true passion for diving and an intimate knowledge of the marine and underwater world.
A Singular Man
Barcelò is a singular man, he does what he wants and no one can impose anything on him ! He carves his own path and does not care about what should be done, or not. It does not matter the stiff gaze of a critical world that seeks to confine him in categories that are not his and in which he never allows himself to be trapped. He moves forward, resolutely. He takes hold of emblematic or “ official ” places like the Dome of the United Nations Palace in Geneva, where he reinvents a sky filled with pictorial matter that leaves one speechless, so overflowing with creative energy.
There is often excess in Barcelò, he overflows, surpasses or overturns the established order. But there is also immense respect for sacred places, as evidenced by his stunning intervention in the Cathedral of Palma de Majorca. He recreates a kind of inspired cave, with walls inhabited by a whole marine world, we are on an island, where grace arises from tectonic shocks and not by renouncing the flesh of the world, its sensitive beauty. The sky and the earth speak to each other, echo each other, making their sacred whispers heard.
No forgetting of the world, no flight to inaccessible limbo, or refusal to inhabit our time as it is. There remains an inspired presence, and a whole transfigured power, which opens a path for each and all towards the sky, from a ground that seems to vibrate. “ This fresco is like a creation of the world, with all the fish and all the fruits of the world. I wanted the motifs of the work to arise from the clay, a religious gesture, almost biblical. ”, he observes in “ De la vida mía ”, and he adds : “ I wanted everything to be new, so I wanted to do something every day that I had never done before. ”
In Search of New Experiences
Barcelò is part of a genealogy, which is first and foremost his own, from Majorca. There, he of course crosses paths with another great Majorcan artist, Joan Mirò, whom he acknowledges, observes, draws inspiration from, and then detaches himself from. Picasso is in the landscape of his art, but why should he always be compared to this man of a thousand lives, to this ogre now so criticized for his morals, and to a conventional discourse that would seek to abolish the genius of an artist?
Barcelò is as he is, he does not need glorious ancestors to fully exist and impose himself for what he is, through what he creates.
He seeks new experiences, a crossing of all the boundaries of creation, as during his performance at the Avignon festival in 2006, with dancer and choreographer Joseph Nadj, where he creates Paso Doble.
A wall of clay that he builds and tears apart, caught in the material that he sculpts with his whole body. A wonder ! Or how to be shaken, deep within, by the invention of new forms and the emergence of what comes from the deepest, from the archaic. From the world of caves, which he admires so much, where “something that gradually emerges from the dark, an image that appears, is the image of life itself. You see that there is no progress in art, art is always art, art is there because we need it, we cannot do without it to exist, no matter the era. ”
This art of Barcelò comes from the Mediterranean, from its creative effervescence, from its refusal to consent to the sole legacies of the past, without ever renouncing them. It is an art that crosses all boundaries and seeks its share of universality. He finds a way to “ Universalize[2] ”, as invited by the philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne, from Africa, which Barcelò has never separated from. It is there that weighs down his gaze and establishes living links between all our shores.
One last piece of news, after Palma de Majorca, Barcelò reconnects with the time of cathedrals. He has indeed been selected as one of the contemporary artists called to create a work for Notre Dame de Paris. A tapestry whose shapes he will design and which will be made by the Manufacture des Gobelins.
Barcelò, again and again !
[1] Miquel Barceló, De la vida mía, Mercure de France, 2023, 260p, 35 euros
[2] Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Universaliser. L’humanité par les moyens de l’humanité, Albin Michel, 2024, 178p, 19,90 euros
To go further, a few books :
Dore Ashton, Miquel Barceló, en chemin, Actes Sud, 2013, 35 euros
Miquel Barceló, Sol Y Sombra, Actes Sud, BNF and Musée Picasso, 2016, 29 euros
Portrait of Miquel Barceló as a cave artist, Gallimard/Collection Lambert Avignon, 37 euros
Miquel Barceló, Mapamundi, Fondation Maeght, 2002
Cover Photo: 1994_L’Alatxa_30x23,5cm_©Miquel Barceló_Photo_André-Morin_Collection de l'artiste