Devotion to Catalunya: Ceramics of Picasso, Miró, Barceló Miquel Barceló in group show at Yoku Moku Museum

Yoku Moku Museum’s Devotion to Catalunya: Ceramics of Picasso, Miró, Barceló, an exhibition curated by Spanish art scholar Kenji Matsuda, focuses on ceramic works by three of Spain’s most celebrated 20th century artists, exploring their individual expression of deep connections to Catalonia.

Miquel Barceló (1957 – ) is a leading contemporary Spanish artist who ranks in the lineage of Picasso and Miró. Originally from Felanitx, a Catalan-speaking town on the island of Mallorca, he had a deep cultural and regional connection with Miró who settled on the island in his later years. Picasso and Miró remain Barceló’s revered mentors. Influenced by the scenery and atmosphere of Mallorca, Catalonia, the locus of his work, as well as the broader Mediterranean and as lands as diverse as Africa and the Himalayas and beyond, Barceló continues to question the very meaning of what it is to be human on planet earth. The Miquel Barceló Exhibition, his first retrospective exhibition in Japan, toured Tokyo Nagasaki and Mie, starting in 2021. It led to a collaboration in 2023 with local Shigaraki ware artist Furuya Kazuya (1976 – ) in Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture. The ceramics Barceló created in Shigaraki, clearly imbued with fresh inspiration from the surroundings, have a feel and quality distinct from works he produced previously in Spain.

A common affinity with Catalonia links the expressions in ceramics of the three distinctive Spanish artists — Picasso, Miró, and Barceló. The exhibition marks the public debut of Miquel Barceló’s Shigaraki ceramic works. The Yoku Moku Museum is also featuring works on loan from other Japanese museums for the first time. Viewers will experience the distinctive approaches of the three celebrated Spanish artists through the lens of their ceramic works and their shared connection and attachment to Catalonia.