- Dates
- —
- Curated by
- Jacques Dupin
Fundació Joan Miró’s opening exhibition
The aims of the Fundació Joan Miró make it imperative that the Centre for Contemporary Art Studies (CEAC) be not only a place to house and exhibit works of art, but also a meeting point for staging innovative experimental activities, an information centre on the work and ideas of creative artists, and a meeting place for artists and the public. The building that houses the CEAC, designed by Josep Lluís Sert, reflects these aims of the Fundació: exhibition halls, a film screening room, places for relaxation and meeting rooms, and spaces to present all manner of shows and events.
But a minimum amount of time is essential for its organisation and, so to speak, its ‘shoot’ in order to achieve these aims. Even the inaugural exhibition that we wanted to hold – an exhibition on ‘Miró, his Catalan roots, his development and his importance in contemporary art’ – would require such long, laborious preparation that we would not be able to open the Centre for Contemporary Art Studies until the spring of 1976.
Nonetheless, the Trustees of the Fundació Joan Miró believe that this necessary first stage of organisation, preparation and ‘shoot’ can be carried out in the best possible conditions if everything is done in the presence, so to speak, of the public for whom the Fundació was created. This is why it is necessary to open the doors of the CEAC as soon as possible, and that is why the Trustees of the Fundació Joan Miró decided to celebrate the inauguration on 10 June 1975 with an exhibition of works by Joan Miró from the collections of the CEAC or those on loan to it.
The Board of Trustees is celebrating this inauguration as an act of homage to Joan Prats, Miró’s great friend and promoter of the Fundació, whose collection will be shown to the public for the first time. An opening aimed primarily at initiating the relationship between the Fundació and its public, as well as the necessary phase of in-house organisation and preparation of activities, could hardly be held under a more evocative aegis than that of Joan Prats, the great organiser of avant-garde artistic activities in Catalonia for more than forty years.
The inauguration will therefore mark the beginning of a period in which the precise aims and vocation of the Fundació Joan Miró will gradually emerge. Aims and vocation that we will present internationally on the occasion of the definitive inauguration of the Centre for Contemporary Art Studies in the spring of this inaugural year.
Barcelona, May 1975
