Miquel Barceló season

Barcelona will feature two exhibits of the internationally-famous Mallorcan painter Miquel Barceló going on until January 6. Just up the Ramblas from the hotel on the Ramblas at the Centre d’Art Santa Monica will be the enigmatically named "Miquel Barceló before Barceló, 1973-1982". This will end on September 25 and cover the artist’s early works. Then Caixa Forum will take over with a monster exhibit of the whole range of his constantly innovative, mind-blowing works. This will go on til January 9 and will be the largest Barceló exhibit ever displayed in Catalunya. It is also somewhat enigmatic, called a "retrospective", despite the fact that Miquel is very much still very much with us.
These two shows will cover all his many artistic periods. Barceló has always been creative and provocative, original and personal. He is constantly experimenting with new media and abundant materials. You will see his earlier abstract impressionist paintings; his illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy; his later series of portraits, including his self portrait as a gorilla and his portrait of a tomato. You will follow his artistic odyssey through Paris, New York, and the west African deserts of Mali, but perceive that Mediterreanean mystic core that has always stayed with him.
Artistic controversy has always followed Barceló around. Even as a 1970’s Barcelona art student he would return to his native Mallorca to take part in the protests and happenings of the conceptual vanguard group "Taller lunatic", the lunatic workshop. He has carved out sculptures using his own body in front of live audiences at his "live art performances". He was early into the ecological movement, trying to prevent biological degradation; Man and Nature is one of his recurring themes.
Two of his more recent major public art works have polemical. He helped renovate the cathedral in Mallorca with a flamboyant envelope-pushing 300-square-meter terra-cotta clay vision of Jesus multiplying the loaves and the fishes which has been compared to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. He has painted the ceiling of one of the United Nations halls with what has been called the "new Sistine Chapel", a spiritual "metaphor of the world" which features seas and curves and hanging paint.
His work is amazing and I personally am really looking forward to putting in some serious time at these two shows and we at the hotel can help you find your way there, too.