Miro

Picasso and Miró. The Flesh and the Spirit offers the first international presentation of 144 works by these two great 20th-century artists. Organised by Fundación MAPFRE in collaboration with the Office of the President of Malta and Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti, the exhibition contributes to the image of Valletta as European Cultural Capital 2018 from a scientific, educational and recreational perspective.

A space for Miró

^{Joan Miró
Peinture (Per a David Fernández Miró) [Painting (Per a David Fernández Miró)]
March 15, 1965
Oil on canvas
Private Collection on temporary loan
© Successió Miró 2018}

The selection of 44 works which together offer a survey of the artistic output of the Catalan painter Joan Miró reveals a modern, highly skilled artist who has reached his artistic maturity and is reflecting on his own painting. Influenced by contemporary innovations in art and always alert to changes in painting and to the work of younger artists, in these works Miró reinterprets approaches such as those of Jackson Pollock and his famous dripping or Lucio Fontana and Manuel Millares’s Informalism, allowing him to delve into a type of painting that went beyond conventional procedures and motifs. While the vocabulary of visual signs that Miró had started to formulate in 1924 underwent numerous revisions, changes and transformations over the years, it always maintained the same identity and the same poetic and spiritual intensity. The motifs are not new – once again we find women, birds and stars – but the artist breathes new life into them, using them to undertake a reflection on his own painting and on gesturalism: the colour black and a hard, aggressive line alternate with arabesques and curving forms “splattered” with drips left by the acrylic paint on the canvas. Miró’s discovery of oriental calligraphy and street graffiti is present here, linking different periods of his work while allowing him to simplify his themes.

^{Joan Miró
Femme, oiseau [Woman, Bird]
December 4, 1970
Oil on zinc
Private Collection on temporary loan
© Successió Miró 2018}

In the 1960s Miró began to pare down the motifs in his paintings in a type of process of refinement that left his work almost bare. This is to be seen in the numerous heads on display in this gallery. Curious creatures that can be mischievous or lyrical and which reveal human attributes. These solitary heads loom out of the canvas, looking inquisitively at the viewer and producing a certain nervousness in us, albeit combined with the humour characteristic of all the artist’s oeuvre.

The final part of the exhibition presents a series of works that can best be understood by bearing in mind Miró’s famous declaration that he wanted to “murder painting”. This murder has a dual meaning. Firstly, throw-away materials, small planks, resins and blobs of paint become the principal elements; secondly, Miró intervened on anonymous paintings which he had purchased in junk markets, painting over them in order to produce a mixture of two artists’ work. He created ten works of this type throughout his career, of which four are on display here.

The Collection allows for a vision of an enthusiastic Miró, engaged and even happy in his dedication to his craft and in the freedom of his language, reflecting on his own painting, on art and on the march of time.

 

^{Joan Miró
Personnage dans un paysage près du village [Figure in a Landscape Near the Village]
July 6, 1965
Oil on “pompier”-style canvas
Private Collection on temporary loan
© Successió Miró 2018}

For more information about Piccasso please click here: Picasso

Picasso and Miró: The Flesh & The Spirit will be exhibited at the Grand Master’s Palace in Valletta between 7 April and 30 June 2018. This is an exhibition being brought to Malta by Fundacion Mapfre.