The Chaotic Memoirs of the Unconventional Miquel Barceló

"Swimming, painting, and reading make for a good day for me, and I've been doing all three since I can remember," says Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, 1957), an artist as unconventional as he is international, who has decided to blend words and images in a kaleidoscopic and chaotic self-portrait in book form: 'De la vida mía' (Galaxia Gutenberg). A faithful reader of poetry, he uses a verse by Góngora to title his disordered memoirs, already published in French and now appearing in Spanish as he prepares three large biblical tapestries for the reconstructed Notre Dame Cathedral.

"If you can say it, don't paint it," asserts the versatile Mallorcan artist, who is also a sculptor, draftsman, potter, and weaver. Barceló, who considers himself "a good reader and a bad writer," has been writing "all his life without artistic intent." He admits that his book-like self-portrait "resembles a photo novel" and has something in common with a painting, "because it is made up of many layers, with brutal and simple gestures, and a hidden part."

He traverses biography and work with more disorder than harmony, jumping from his childhood to his parents' lives, his native island, the sea, animals, creation, his artistic references, or the places where he has lived and painted. He originally wrote it in French—"my Latin, because it gives me absolute impunity." "If I had pretensions, I would do it in Catalan or Spanish, and it would be rubbish," he jokes.

He avoids talking about some of his more famous friends, like Warhol or Basquiat, but not Curro Romero or Camarón, and details his fascination with Africa and prehistoric art. He shows his workshops—"my caves"—in Mallorca, Paris, or Bamako and how he approaches painting, sculpture, or ceramics in each. He speaks of his iconic and monumental interventions, such as the ceramic mural in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the Cathedral of Mallorca, the dome of the Human Rights Room at the UN headquarters in Geneva, or the stained glass windows of the National Library of France in Paris.

The next will be three gigantic tapestries measuring six by four meters for the restored Notre Dame Cathedral, devastated by flames on April 15, 2019, which Barceló experienced and suffered "like any other neighbor in my Parisian neighborhood." They will be dedicated to figures like Noah or Moses and inspired by themes from the Old Testament, to be hung in a chapel on the north side of the temple, as confirmed by the archdiocese of the French capital.

"I have worked on cartoons, like Goya, and have already delivered some, but it will still take two or three years to complete," he explains. They will be woven in the legendary workshops of the Les Gobelins manufactory "with cotton, silk, and synthetic materials, some luminescent," details its creator, who agreed with the ecclesiastical authority on the theme and technical conditions of the pieces. "They will have no reliefs to avoid dust accumulation," he specifies.

He believes he will not attend the solemn reopening ceremony of the Parisian temple, where French President Emmanuel Macron wants to be surrounded by geniuses and leaders from around the world. "Whether you are a believer or not, I am very pleased to participate in the cathedral's recovery," the artist rejoices. British-Kenyan painter Michael Armitage is creating four other textile pieces for the cathedral.

'De la vida mía' exudes a passion for nature. It speaks of the smell of rotten squid and fish from the boats of his village "which for me is like the madeleine for Proust." It recreates fish, donkeys, pigs, bulls, cows, or the fifteen dogs he has had, which sneak into his writings and works. "Naming is painting, but you don't learn to paint by looking at nature. You learn by looking at painting," he maintains.

"Painting is making mistakes, accepting what comes out. Like jugglers, if you stop, everything collapses," he asserts today from the vantage point of success and his stratospheric valuation, acknowledging himself as unconventional as his admired Pablo Picasso. "We shouldn't invoke the bad beasts we admire, but neither should we cancel them; we should open windows," he says, thinking of "monsters" like Céline. "Painters live from being incorrect. When I started, they said painting was dead, and that made me absolutely free," he notes.

Reluctant to read on digital media, he lives "surrounded by mountains of books, but I keep buying because reading makes me paint." Especially when the thermometers rise mercilessly. "In Africa, with days of temperatures between 45 and 50 degrees, I couldn't draw, but I could write," he recalls his days in Mali.

Joan Tarrida, his publisher, highlights the paradox that Barceló has twelve titles in his imprint but only this one with original texts. It joins the illustrated editions of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' or Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis' and his notebooks from Africa and the Himalayas and several books about his work.

Tarrida commissioned the memoirs "almost twenty years ago," but Barceló had no desire to tackle them until, on a trip to Japan, he began looking at photos, notebooks, and family memories. He began to sketch it "isolated and without Google." Conversations with French editor Colette Fellous led him to "rewrite" the text, which has been translated into Spanish by Nicole d'Amonville Alegría and into Catalan by Emili Manzano.

At 67, Barceló knows that at that age, Miró and Picasso had already deposited their legacy in respective foundations. "I've done the memoirs, which are an effort, but I don't think much. I still have much to paint," he challenges.

He considered that a good place for a foundation would be the Dogon country in Mali, "but the war prevents it," he laments. His African friends tell him "that Islamists kidnap people and that there are indiscriminate massacres." "These are common conflicts between sedentary and nomadic people, compounded by the consequences of post-colonial wars," he explains. "I have traveled to many other places in the world, but there I had my home," he mourns, recalling that for two years he taught at the Bamako Conservatory of Arts, but for now, all that has ended.