The creator of the work that astonishes the world
Barceló’s plastic intervention on the dome of Room XX of the Palais des Nations in Geneva started on 10 September 2007 and ended on 10 June 2008.
Miquel Barceló was born in Felanitx, Mallorca, in 1957. He studied at the School of Arts and Crafts of Palma and in 1974 began a Fine Arts degree at the University of Barcelona. In the late 1970s he presented his first works, which were in line with the conceptual spirit associated with the Taller Llunàtic group in Palma de Mallorca.
When he first travelled to Paris he discovered l’Art brut and North American abstract expressionism. In the early 1980s his figurative painting revealed an expressionist tendency, in clear association with two internationally influential artistic movements: new German expressionist painting and the Italian Transavantgarde.
In 1981 he participated in the collective exhibition “Otras figuraciones” (Other Figurations) mounted by Fundación ”la Caixa” in Madrid. A year later Rudie Fuch asked him to participate in the 7th Kassel Documenta. From this moment on his work won international recognition; proof of this are his exhibitions in prestigious art galleries such as London’s Whitechapel Gallery, Leo Castelli in New York or Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich and art centres such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, the MACBA, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía or the Louvre Museum.