Miquel Barceló

Miquel Barceló is a multifaceted artist whose artistic ability and vital appetite are somewhat reminiscent of Pablo Picasso’s. He is a popular artist on the international contemporary art circuit.

He is well known for his experimental approach and enjoys inventing materials and techniques. Barceló’s style explores decomposition, light and natural landscapes through the use of bleach, organic matter and even living insects.

His work frequently portrays Prehistoric cave art and invents shapes that the very first humans might have used. At the heart of a thicket, the monster of La Grotte Chaumont shows visitors the back of its throat, presented to resemble an underwater cave. Its stalactite-like teeth threaten to close down in an instant, creating before us the concept of a world that is either just forming or being swallowed up. Could that be Jonah standing on the edge of the whale? The hieratic figure, nude like Adam, seems to be waiting to be regurgitated onto dry land. And what does the red colour between two of its teeth represent? A tongue? Certainly not! Maybe an item of clothing like in the scene painted by Pieter Lastman in 1621. Yet more proof that the artist never stops painting, and that his artwork represents the vast thread of art history that connects Chauvet cave to Chaumont’s very own cave.

Miquel Barceló was born on the island of Mallorca in 1957. He is a painter first and foremost, but also an illustrator, engraver, sculptor and ceramicist. In 1975, he joined Barcelona’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, but then quickly distanced himself from academia and got involved in the conceptual group Taller Llunatic, who were opposed to Franco’s government. From 1977, he began to introduce organic matter into his paintings, a technique that he would then pursue throughout his career.

As a member of the scientific committee in charge of restoring the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc caves, the birthplace of prehistoric art in the Ardèche, he is one of the lucky few to have seen the original cave paintings. He was fascinated by the artworks on these rocks and they inspired him greatly, especially for his exhibition entitled Miquel Barceló. Sol y sombra at the National Library of France (BnF) in 2016, where he covered a 200-m-long and 6-m-high pane of glass with liquid clay. He also referred back to this inspiration for the group exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 2019, entitled Préhistoire, une énigme moderne (Prehistory, a modern enigma), in which a wall painting on glass created by the artist was exhibited.

In 2024, Miquel Barceló delivered an extraordinary sculpture to the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire, which was a special commission from the Centre-Loire Valley Region. The fabulous animal is now featured in the institution’s permanent collection, and can be admired 363 days a year.