Miquel Barcelo: Terra Ignis

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Miquel Barcelo: Terra Ignis
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Miquel Barcelo
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:96
Dimensions(mm): Height 300,Width 240
Category/GenreArt and design styles - from c 1960 to now
Painting and paintings
Individual artists and art monographs
ISBN/Barcode 9782330019327
ClassificationsDewey:759.6
Audience
General
Illustrations Illustrated in colour throughout

Publishing Details

Publisher Actes Sud
Imprint Actes Sud
Publication Date 17 February 2014
Publication Country France

Description

This book, published to accompany the 'Works of Fire' exhibition at the Ceret Museum of Modern Art, presents Miquel Barcelo's ceramics work. Created in Majorca in a former tilery and brickyard transformed into a workshop, the terracotta figures are damaged or disturbed by the introduction of bricks in the still-fresh clay, which humanizes their familiar forms. The self-portrait is a recurrent theme: eyes and mouth engraved into vases, and amphorae in shapes inherited from Antiquity; skulls and heads explicitly evoke the idea of vanity, an ever-present theme in Barcelo's work, which appears in the fractures, cracks, and swelling that the clay undergoes before or during firing. Apart from the self-portraits, there are emanations of the animal or plant world, also disturbed by the bricks which come to inhabit or destroy them. Rosebuds bloom, fish live and fossilize, bricks form secret cavities. These spectacular works owe their presence to their apparent fragility as well as to their life force, and the struggle and dramas they welcome. All Barcelo's themes are present in his ceramic works. As ever, the passage of time and death are expressed in the most fragile and durable way.