Lot Essay
After a visit from Leo Castelli in 1985 in his Paris studio, Barceló began to work on group of paintings that formed his "Chinese restaurant series". "During this period I painted still-lives of a kind, in a state of transformation, where I insisted on the procedures of the making of the painting and tried to look closer at large-scale organic transformations." (Interview with Sylvie Couderc, Barcelona, 1987)
The following year Barceló presented this series in his first one-man exhibition at Castelli's in New York, where he noted "In order to paint the pictures...I used organic materials like flour, spaghetti and especially rice. Stabilised, of course, with glue, polymers and formol."
The following year Barceló presented this series in his first one-man exhibition at Castelli's in New York, where he noted "In order to paint the pictures...I used organic materials like flour, spaghetti and especially rice. Stabilised, of course, with glue, polymers and formol."