Blog Fundació Joan Miró

23_10_2017

Gardens Don’t Exist; They’re An Illusion

Lately, an unusual garden has been growing at the Fundació Joan Miró – a garden designed by the artist Pep Vidal for bees and other insect pollinators, providing them with a pace of their own, without boundaries or conditions. Inspired by this project, Vicky Benítez, a Fine Arts graduate and professional gardener, offers us a nostalgic look at a lost, denatured world, dominated by the artifice of gardens that are organized according to primarily aesthetic criteria. Vicky Benítez proposes that we tend our gardens with a full awareness that we are not tending the body, but rather the soul; and she stresses the importance of urban vegetable gardens as spaces for social cohesion where nature (both human and non-human) can grow and develop freely.

07_09_2017

Jordi J. Clavero

The Perplexed Object

In the 1990s, the French critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud laid the groundwork for the concept of relational art in his essay Esthétique relationnelle (Les presses du réelle, 1998). According to Bourriaud, the work of art is now presented ‘as a “duration” that must be experienced, as an invitation to unlimited dialogue.’

Following this approach, which emphasizes the viewer’s relationship to the art object, Jordi J. Clavero, the head of the Fundació Joan Miró’s Education Department, considers the concept of a work of art and its constant mutation as it is experienced first-hand by each one of its viewers.

26_07_2017

Ivan Pintor Iranzo

The Way We Are Made

On the occasion of the exhibition The Way Things Do, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of Fischli and Weiss’s iconic filmThe Way Things Go at the Fundació Joan Miró, Ivan Pintor looks at the way the Swiss duo’s film and the works by the young artists taking part in the exhibition connect with the comic strip and cinema tradition.

Ivan Pintor holds a PhD in Audiovisual Communication from Pompeu Fabra University and specialises in comparative cinema, audiovisual narrative and the history of the comic strip. In his article, Pintor investigates how chain reactions, constant motion and technological complexity have been addressed from Rube Goldberg’s cartoons and the weekly comic TBO to slapstick and science fiction films.

14_07_2017

Anna Fabra Raduà

Art for the Next Generation

LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) is an example of a museum that opened up to young people and to its local community, giving priority to collective experimentation and learning. Its Arts for NexGen project has had a major impact on a highly diverse social environment.

Cultural manager, fundraiser and independent consultant Anna Fabra felt particularly drawn to this endeavour. She lives in Los Angeles and is a regular visitor to the museum. Above and beyond her experience as a user, she has chosen to delve further into the reasons for the project’s success and consider how a similar experience could be carried over to Barcelona.

15_06_2017

Dolors R. Roig

À toute épreuve and the Art of Language

On the occasion of the Éluard, Cramer, Miró – À toute épreuve, more than a book exhibition, Dolors R. Roig examines the creative process behind the book by Joan Miró based on a collection of poems by Paul Éluard, explaining how Miró ventured beyond illustration and how the collaborative project led to new poems. While reviewing this creative adventure, her article addresses the way in which Éluard’s and Miró’s imaginations merged.

Dolors R. Roig holds a PhD in Art History and specializes in modern and contemporary art. She is responsible for art research and programming at Galeria Mayoral and teaches at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, where she was involved in the Joan Miró: An Artist Who Defined a Century MOOC and the Miró Studies Postgraduate Diploma.

26_05_2017

Antoni Hervàs

The SpaceFest

The artist Antoni Hervàs received a commission from the Fundació Joan Miró to design a family workshop based on the theme of self-organization as part of the exhibition with the same title curated by Antonio Ortega, which provides an overview of DIY art practices from the 1960s until the present.

Hervàs tells us about the process of conceiving and creating the SpaceFest (La festa espacial) and the connection between the activity and self-organized practices, from the original idea to the implementation of the workshop with its participants. The SpaceFest is one of the most recent events in the line of family activities created by artists at the Fundació.

05_05_2017

Ester Ramos

The Morning Star Flies to the United States to Join the Other Constellations

Morning star is one of the 23 Constellations that Miró painted from 1940 to 1941, following his desire to escape from reality right after the outbreak of World War II. This group of pieces conveys an idealized vision of a world of celestial beings. Since its creation, the series has been shown almost in full on three occasions in New York. Now, Acquavella Galleries has managed to bring together the nearly complete series in the Miró: Constellations show that will be on exhibit from 20 April through 26 May, 2017. Art historian and FJM assistant curator Ester Ramos describes this gathering of the Constellations as a historic event and tells us about the importance of this series in the life and work of Joan Miró.

19_04_2017

Cloe Masotta

Meeting Joan Brossa

The foyer at the Fundació, devoted to amateur photography, is currently the venue for the Joaquim Gomis exhibition titled Brossa at La Ricarda and will soon feature From a Pixel a Poem, by Cloe Masotta, as part of Epicentre Brossa, an activities programme centred on the life and work of Joan Brossa, the poet and visual artist who transformed contemporary Catalan culture.

Cloe Masotta, a film critic and professor who handles film programming for museums and cultural centres, has completed a research project on Joan Brossa as part of the Independent Studies Programme at the MACBA Museum in Barcelona. Here she tells us about her immersion into Brossa’s world and describes the sequence of coincidences through which the poet worked his way into her life.