A new display
April 9, 2016
The Fundació Joan Miró presents a new approach to its collection
As the culmination of its 40th anniversary, the Fundació Joan Miró is updating the displays of its permanent collection to provide a multifaceted approach to the work of Joan Miró. The exhibition brings together 150 works, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics and textiles, and is deployed in eight sections focusing on the main aspects that marked the creative search of the artist.
Joan Miró. Collection confronts the ultimate meaning of Miró’s creative legacy: the will to distil what is unique to mankind. For the artist, this desire is based on an affirmation of identity arising from his contact with his native soil as a living experience: in particular, with Mont-roig, the initial source of his creation, as indicated in the first section, "The Land."
However, this desire was only materialised by establishing a dialogue with the Parisian avant-garde, an idea reflected in the second section: "Beyond Painting." The historical context, which was marked by a backdrop of armed conflict, also leaves its imprint on his creation, as evidenced by the works exhibited in "Violence, Escape."
In the following sections, "Anonymity" and "Poetry and Silence," the simplification of his language of signs and an interest in Zen spirituality led the artist to transcend the individualistic conception of art. This feeling was reiterated by the artist throughout his career, as reflected in the "Anti-Painting," "Sobreteixims," and "Art and Everyday Life" sections. These new displays demonstrate Miró’s endeavour to acquire a dimension that went beyond the individual level to become universal.
The new display presents a dynamic and constantly updated collection with the inclusion of new works on long-term loan from the Miró family that reinforce the Fundació’s collection and allow, for example, the reuniting of works conceived originally as diptychs, such as The day and The night, both from 1974, which have not been shown together since the exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris that same year.
The integration of the Kazumasa Katsuta collection into the general itinerary of the permanent displays, until now located in a specific space, emphasises the unitary approach of this new presentation. This initiative features other sets of works that need to be seen together, such as and Woman, bird I, II, III, 1972–73.
The new narrative retrieves some key works in the collection of the Fundació, such as the "Sèrie Barcelona" (1944), 50 black-and-white lithographs, of which there are only five complete editions and two sets of artist’s proofs, one of which was donated to the Fundació by Joan Prats and is extensively represented here.
This series of lithographs is displayed in a room entirely dedicated to works on paper, which will have regular rehangs according to conservational and conceptual criteria. This space will also enable the showing of lesser known works from the Fundació’s collection of drawings, a worldwide reference for the study of Miró’s work, and is reinforced by the Miró Chair, a joint initiative between the Fundació and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
The exhibition covers an area of 1,558 square meters and is located in the spaces that Joan Miró and the architect Josep Lluís Sert conceived to house the collection, and which were extended in 1988 by Jaume Freixa. The display enhances the unique dialogue between art, architecture and landscape that characterises the Fundació and is further developed following the circulatory plan designed by Sert.
Joan Miró. Collection recovers some of the spaces designed specifically for certain pieces, like the apses for contemplation of the triptychs Painting on white background for the cell of a recluse I, II, III, 1968, and The hope of a condemned man I, II, III, 1974. The project has also implied significant works of renovation and improvement of the installations.
Concluding the show, a multimedia room deepens the experience of Miró’s universe through a mural in the form of a conceptual constellation and a new audiovisual space.
