MALAGA.- CAC Málaga presents 84 works from Miquel Barceló’s African period. Málaga is the only Spanish city to host this exhibition, organised by the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and curated by the museum’s director, Enrique Juncosa. Scarcely a week before the artist unveils the dome at United Nations headquarters in Geneva, the exhibition Miquel Barceló: The African Work, featuring pieces from collections all over the world, opens at CAC Málaga until the 15th of February 2009.

The show furthers Málaga City Council’s policy of promoting an international cultural programme with the aim of becoming European Capital of Culture in 2016 and consolidating CAC Málaga as an international point of reference for contemporary art in southern Europe.

Several of the pieces brought together in The African Work, including works on paper, large and small-format paintings, sculptures, ceramics and sketchbooks, are being shown for the first time. All have in common the artist’s association with West Africa, which marks a turning-point in his work and serves him as a constant inspiration, as we can see in his themes: women coming and leaving engaged in their daily work, brightly-coloured native dress and vast landscapes.

In the words of CAC Málaga's director Fernando Francés: “This exhibition is an exclusive, first exhaustive tour of Miquel Barceló’s African work, and also includes our first view of a selection of works on paper, a material the artist often uses when working in Africa, whether sketchbooks or diaries, in which he also, from time to time, notes his thoughts on the continent in words”.

Unlike many artists who have been fascinated with the continent, Barceló is drawn not to the exoticism of the area, but rather to the daily life of its inhabitants, which he presents in a series of portraits, domestic scenes, landscapes and still lifes.

Barceló experiments with local pigments and soil to create deep, intense colours to instil marvellous life into his work. Combined with the poverty of the region, this confers a somewhat spiritual character onto Barceló’s African production.

The irregular surfaces of his paintings reveal the delight Barceló takes in the beauty of the African landscape. Some are even covered in a layer of dust from sand storms, whilst others contain holes made by termites, further evidence of the artist’s fascination with transitory nature in the continent. The exhibition also includes several large-format works produced in Africa and thereby linked to his experience there.

Miquel Barceló: The African Work also features some of Barceló’s first ceramic works. These are the results of a practice that also has its roots in Africa, and are created with the sense of urgency so characteristic of the artist.

Life and Work
Miquel Barceló (Majorca, 1957) studied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma and the Fine Arts Academy in Barcelona. In 1974 he held his first solo exhibition at the Picarol Art Gallery in Cala d’Or, Majorca. During the 1980s he travelled in Europe, the United States and West Africa. He achieved international acclaim in 1982 for his participation at Documenta 7 in Kassel.

Barceló works with a huge range of media in his many different projects, including paintings and drawings, backdrops for opera, murals and engravings, and terracotta and ceramic sculptures. From 2001 to 2006, Barceló worked on a project for the cathedral in Palma, covering an entire chapel in terracotta and then decorating it with images relating to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St John.

Recent solo exhibitions include those organised at the Pinacoteca do Estado, São Paulo, 2003; Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2004; Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, 2005; and the Sala Kubo, Donostia-San Sebastián, 2005.

Barceló, who just created ceiling paintings for the Room for Human Rights at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, currently lives between Paris, Majorca and Mali.