sans titre

Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, Spain, 1957)
Commissioned by : Spanish State
Collection : ONU
 

To thank the UN for housing masterpieces from the Prado Museum during the Spanish Civil War, in 2005 the Spanish government offered to renovate the conference room where the Human Rights Council meets. It added a monumental, spectacular work by Miquel Barceló.

In this 1930s building, which was the headquarters of the League of Nations before becoming the UN Office in Europe, the Majorcan artist’s intervention appears on the immense 1500-square-meter dome that overhangs the circular space of Room XX. The work is a cross between sculpture and painting, consisting of several layers of color made from pigments from around the world. Sprayed onto the dome, the pictorial material develops through drips shaped like stalactites that successively suggest images of a foaming sea, a mineral cave or a starry sky. With its blue-gray nuances and warm, bright spots of yellow and orange, this sparkling rainbow evokes the infinite changes of natural landscapes. It took a rare technical virtuosity (over thirty tons of paint were applied to the ceiling) and a unique creative adventure to meet this artistic challenge. Miquel Barceló takes his inspiration mainly from the journeys he has been making to Africa since 1988, particularly in Mali, developing a pictorial art that gives pride of place to references to nature, its texture and its colors.
Article commissioned by P3Art
Notice: Séverine Fromaigeat, translation: Matthew Cunningham  

Links: www.p3art.ch