The Mallorcan artist Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, 1957) published in 1993 in Paris Les tendes desmuntades o el món desconegut de les percepcions (Disassembled stores or the unknown world of perceptions), an artist's book fruit of his collaboration with blind photographer and writer Evgen Bavcar. The book had a print run of 180 copies in Braille, French and Spanish.
One of these volumes is owned by the city council of Arta, donated by the artist in 2004, which is now shown for the first time. Through 48 lithographs and 32 embossed prints, Barceló illustrates the story of Les tendes desmuntades ... a story that refers us two ways of perceiving the world: one based on the visual, the other with every sense but the view. The protagonists are a psychologist who begins working at an institution for the blind and his blind secret lover. From the union of Bavcar and Barceló arise images with an erotic character, marine animals or abstract figures that play with textures, transparencies and volume.
The book is shown in a showcase open on a page, but facsimiles of five pages of the book have been made - with images and text in braille, with translations into standard writing-so that visitors can touch it. In addition, the digitization of the entire original Spanish book allows the visitors to view and read all the pages via a touch screen installed in the room. On this project have collaborated the Foundation Pilar i Joan Miró, in whose graphic art workshops the reproductions for the facsimiles have been carried out, and the Department of Digitization of the University of the Balearic Islands.
The exhibition opens on May 17 at 20:30 with a tasting of the wine Black Ànima, of which the label is illustrated by Miquel Barceló, and Saturday 18, International Museum Day, the Regional Museum of Arta celebrates a day of open house with guided tours in Catalan, Castilian English and for blind people.
