Miquel Barceló (n. 1957) Lot n° 18

Mixed media on canvas "Bodegon", c.1983-1984 With certificate of authenticity from Bruno Bischofberger AG Gallery, Switzerland Additional Information: Bodegón belongs to a series of medium-sized paintings representing kitchens made by Miquel Barceló between 1983 and 1984. This painting was acquired at ARCO in 1985 by a Portuguese collector and since then has always remained in private collections. Some of these ‘kitchens’ were painted in Portugal in the summer of 1984, during the four months that Barceló spent in Vila Nova de Milfontes, in the south of the country, with his friend and designer Javier Mariscal. Their stay in Portugal was the subject of a documentary by Paloma Chamorro on her television program La Edad de Oro. Here is shown the artist producing, on the beach of Vila Nova de Milfontes, large seascapes with boats and shipwrecks, incorporating algae and sand as pictorial materials. It is during this period that Barceló also paints some smaller still lifes in the series from which we show here. Shortly after, these small 'kitchens' evolved to larger size works such as Fum de Cuina [Kitchen Smoke] (1984) or La Gran Cena Española [The Great Spanish Dinner] (1985). The later was the first work by Miquel Barceló to be acquired by Reina Sofía Museum, in Madrid. All paintings of the kitchen series were painted during the time the artist was establishing himself in the international scene. Jean-Louis Froment organized Barceló's first institutional exhibition at CAPC Musée d´Art Contemporain, in Bordeaux, opened in May 1985, after showed at Velázquez Palace, in Madrid, and later, in 1986, at the Institute of Contemporary Art, in Boston. The touring exhibition featured a wide range of paintings by Barceló from 1983 to 1985, a period in which the artist is shown in important private galleries in Naples, Paris, Madrid, Nagoya or Cologne. This is the time his work is related to neo-expressionism, being described as a nomadic and wild p