Miquel Barceló

MIQUEL BARCELÓ (Felanitx, Mallorca, 1957).
"Aurea dicta". 2019.
Numbered edition of 1298 signed copies.
Hand signed.
Original work reproduced by digital giclée printing with 8 Ultrachrome pigmented inks on Hahnemühle William Turner 310 g paper, protected with a folder and neutral waxed paper.
Covers: cardboard lined with Wibalin Cotton White (Winter) paper printed from an original by Miquel Barceló.
Inside: 120 pages + flyleaves.
Flyleaves: illustrations by Miquel Barceló printed on 140 g. Flora Avorio paper (Cordenons).
Flyleaf: 120 g Munken Lynx Rough paper printed in one ink and one sheet in 4 inks.
Binding: hard cover with 16-page spreads sewn with thread; round spine with headbands.
Measurements: 16 × 32 cm (closed); 32 × 32 cm (open).
Miquel Barceló's "Aurea dicta" is considered the most ambitious publishing project of the distinguished artist, the result of an arduous creative process. It received the award for "Best Bibliophile Book" from the Ministry of Culture. "Aurea Dicta" is an extensive compilation of 2,639 aphorisms from texts of the great classics (Virgil, Cicero, Seneca...), the favorites of the most outstanding intellectuals of the Bernat Metge Foundation. The volume consists of a total of 228 pages, with more than 120 pictorial interventions by Miquel Barceló, printed on the same Fedrigoni paper used in the creation of the original and reflecting the richness of the artist's life. The classic texts that Barceló has selected coexist here with the most vital and luminous vision of his creative universe: the sea, the fauna, the sun and the light of the European and African Mediterranean; man as a figure in the landscape and the driving force behind the action; animal life as a reflection of primordial human instinct. Barceló's interventions, a mixture of pictorial and sculptural elements, begin and are manifested in the very conception of the work, for which the artist painted on a very peculiar canvas-book: a first copy of the work in which the artist has been able to paint directly on his selection of texts arranged on the pages. In "Aurea dicta" we find motifs that are the result of this direct work on the book format, such as handmade perforations, slashes, collages or false symmetries created by the effect of the transfer of pigment from page to page.
Miquel Barceló Artigues is one of the most recognized painters of today. In 1986 he was awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, and since then his work has been recognized through the most outstanding awards, such as the Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes (2003) or the Sorolla Prize of the Hispanic Society of America in New York (2007). Barceló is currently represented in the most important contemporary art museums in the world, such as the MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Marugami Hirai in Japan, the Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Patio Herreriano in Valladolid, the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Carré d'Art in Nimes, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Caracas and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.