In past years Miquel Barceló has been depicted in various albeit contrasting ways. He has been acclaimed as: the new Picasso, the rebel, the genius and the joker. The primary objective of this book is to situate the artist within contemporary critical debate, discuss his production in the context of postmodern times and articulate his affinity with Hypermodernity. Barceló’s writings, declarations and works are compared and contrasted in order to determine the artist’s autofiction, in order to bridge the artist’s hyper-individualism, discussed in the context of the Hypermodern Era, and the oceanic feeling. The book presents new findings, hitherto unpublished, discovered in the artist’s journals or collated during long meetings with the artist. These are new tools to help the reader understand Barceló’s art, and hopefully, our times too.
Irene Biolchini (1984). She is an associate lecturer at the Department of Digital Arts, University of Malta and Guest Curator at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza where she curated various site-specific exhibitions over the past six years. She is regularly published in several journals, including reviews and blogs dedicated to ceramic and contemporary art. She also combines her research activities with the curation of varied and diverse contemporary art projects and exhibitions.