EAST HAMPTON, NY.- The LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton , New York is pleased to announce the opening on July 27th of Miquel Barceló: Clay and Bronze, curated by Dore Ashton. The opening of the exhibition will be followed by a reception and a conversation with Miquel Barceló led by Dore Ashton. The fifty-year-old artist, having just inaugurated his spectacular ceramic chapel in the imposing cathedral of Palma de Mallorca this year, continues working with clay, creating sculptured polychrome vessels, creatures from an imaginary bestiary, and freestanding sculptures rendered in bronze.

LongHouse Reserve will be the only exhibition site for this spectacular collection of Barceló’s work in the United States .

Miquel Barceló was born in Felanitx, Majorca in 1957. Barceló was introduced to art at a young age by his mother, who painted in the Mallorcan landscape tradition. He commenced studies at the Fine Art College Sant Jordi in Barcelona in 1975; however, he stopped attending classes shortly thereafter, preferring to spend his time painting. In 1976 Barceló had his first solo exhibition at the Picarol Gallery in Majorca. Metamorphosis was a central theme of the exhibition; a motif that is reflected in other projects in his early career. Barceló’s work was first widely recognized in the international scene at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1981, and at VII Documenta de Kassel in 1982, where he was the only Spanish artist represented. Throughout his career Barceló has created an immense body of work, working in several different media including painting, ceramics, works on paper, set design and sculpture. The themes and motifs of his work have been inspired by a rich variety of sources, from Baroque painting to American abstract expressionism. His extensive travel, especially his many trips to Africa, has also been a central theme in his work. In 1996 Barceló began to experiment with traditional techniques for working with terracotta and ceramics. Thereafter he continued to work intensively with ceramics, often producing large pieces he then cast in bronze. In 2000 he produced more than a hundred new ceramics for an exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. In 2003 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Plastic Arts. In February of this year, his monumental ceramic work in the Chapel of Sant Pere of the Cathedral of Mallorca was inaugurated. Barceló’s work has been the subject of retrospective exhibitions at several preeminent museums including: the Musee d’art contemporian, Bordeaux; the Institut Valencia d’Art Modern; the Jeu de Paume and the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris; the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia in Madrid; the Louvre in Paris and the Museo d’Arte Moderna de Lugano in Italy.