Miquel Barceló was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca (Majorca) in 1957. He studied at art schools in Palma de Mallorca and Barcelona. In 1976, he joined an avant-garde art collective in Mallorca. Since his international debut at the documenta 7 exhibition (in Kassel, Germany) in 1982, he has remained in vigorous production activity in studios in Mallorca, Paris, Africa, and other places. In 1988, he went to Africa in pursuit of a harsh climate and solitude, and has since made repeated visits to Mali for extended stays and artistic creation. As a prolific artist constantly in search of change, Barceló's production encompasses everything from paintings, drawings, travel notes, illustrations for books, sculptures, ceramics, performance art, and scenography to spectacular architectural projects such as the decoration of the apse of Saint Peter's Chapel within the Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma de Mallorca (completed in 2007) and the ceiling artwork in the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva (completed in 2008). He has frequently shown works at the Venice Biennale, and did so at the African pavilion in 2007 and the Spanish pavilion in 2009. He has a keen interest in the drawings on the walls of caves from the prehistoric age, and was a member of the academic committee promoting a project for a replica of the Chauvet Cave. He was designated an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture in 2013 and given the Sant Jordi Award by the government of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain in 2020. This is the first large-scale solo exhibition of his works to be held in Japan.