Miquel Barceló

Galerie Bischofberger, Zürich
Galleri Haaken, Oslo
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1996

Trente, Galleria Civica d'Arte Contemporaneo, Miquel Barceló, 1993
Oslo, Galleri Haaken, Miquel Barceló Malerier-Skulpturer, 1996, illustrated in colour
Trondheim, Kunstmuseum; Bergen, Kunstforening; Barcelona, Palau Reial de Pedralbes; Madrid, Centro Cultural del Conde Duque; Zaragoza, IberCaja; Logroño, La Salle d'Amos Salbador, Oslo, Kommunes Kunstsamlinger, Stenersenmuseet, Contemporary European Painting - North meets South, 1999-2000, p. 68, illustrated in colour

Executed in 1992, Cent Caps, 100 heads in Catalan, can be read as an autobiographical collation of all the key motifs that reoccur throughout Barceló’s pictorial vocabulary. Within the highly structured and evolving arrangement of interlocking forms strewn across this vertical silvery plane, the artist presents us with a life summary encompassed by the elements most poignant to him, which refer directly to many of his most symbolic series. For example, the imposing black head of a bull in the top right hand corner, possibly a sophisticated metaphor for himself, recalls his passion and obsession with bullfighting. The numerous scattered beige skulls across the surface, coupled with other striking imagery such as a book, fishes, eels, fruit, and knives, some of them painted and others just quickly drawn in thick black outlines, are here reformulated as memories of his annual foreign travels. The surface acts like a vivid flashback of reality, a tight network of interwoven motifs from past experiences, which becomes the ultimate expression and homage to the artist’s life.