Miquel Barceló: Grisaille

Posted on by cmarthoughts
The image shows a painting in purple and shades of white. An ox's skull and a lobster can be made out in the left top and right bottom corner respectively. It is an art work by Miquel Barceló.
Miquel Barceló, El cabrón, 2022. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul
© Miquel Barceló / Adagp, Paris, 2022. Photo: David Bonet.

Review
Miquel Barceló: Grisaille
October 8, 2022 – January 7, 2023
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin

I don’t like what is being shown; but I like how it is being shown.

Dark paintings, relating to pre-history [oxes]; late antiquity [fishes/bible]; and baroque [banquets].
Purple – blood; gray/grisaille – smoke. Fluffy puffy pink and yellow. 

These paintings are nicely dirty, even playful by times. Miquel Barceló elaborates on historical forms of the still life, offering a new interpretation. Indeed, these paintings shift between stasis and movement; fossils and water, image and smoke.

A Birthday table [on my Birthday], extravagance and decay. The one comes with the other, and balance is reached through the extremes. Aka: Art.

Knives, and death, violence; and light. This poignant white, like snow, like powder, like mortar. Skulls and pomegranates, skeletons and lobsters. We love the excess.

Pure paint in its refined form.

The image shows a painting in black, white, and shades of gray. The scene seems a heavily loaded banquet with lobsters, knives, and chandeliers. It is an art work by Miquel Barceló.
Miquel Barceló, Mezza vita, 2022. Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac gallery, London · Paris · Salzburg · Seoul
© Miquel Barceló / Adagp, Paris, 2022. Photo: Charles Duprat.