Barcelona, 12 July 2023. This summer, the public will be able to visit the wholly renewed Miró Universe touring exhibition at the Instituto Cervantes in Athens from 13 to 27 July. As part of an international tour that has already taken it to countries like France, Italy, Germany, the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico, the exhibition is now being opened in the Greek capital to mark the Spanish Presidency of the European Union. On this occasion, the show will incorporate new pictorial and sculptural works by Joan Miró, as well as a renewed selection of photographs of the artist’s creative process taken by Joaquim Gomis, which have come from the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya.
Specifically, visitors to the exhibition will have the chance to see the paintings Woman and Birds (1969), Painting (1971-1973) and Head, Bird (1976) from the Fundació Joan Miró holdings. All three works are from the artist’s final stage, in which he combined denser compositions that tended to occupy the entire pictorial surface with other simpler, more gestural and poetic ones. In the words of Véronique Dupas, the exhibition curator and author of the text for the publication accompanying the show, ‘despite the differences from a formal viewpoint, the show’s three paintings share the use of one chromatic range, reduced to primary colours and accompanied by black, which acquires a structural function.
The careful selection for Miró Universe also includes the sculptures Woman (1966) and Figure (1968) from the Fundació Joan Miró holdings. These were created in the 1960s, when Miró set out on a path of ambitious sculptural production connected with the objet trouvé or
found object. As Dupas points out, ‘the artist found inspiration in all kinds of materials gathered randomly from nature during his walks, and in objects shaped by the hands of man, which he collected in his studios.
In addition, Miró Universe presents a selection of photographs that document the artist’s creative processes and working environments. The snapshots are by Joaquim Gomis (Barcelona, 1902-1991), an art promoter and great friend of Joan Miró, who photographed the artist’s work and creative environment throughout his career. Gomis was the first president of the Board of Trustees of the Fundació Joan Miró, where, at the wishes of his heirs, his photographic archive held on long-term loan at the Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya is managed and disseminated.
The works allow visitors to discover how Miró ‘became a multidisciplinary artist capable of working in various registers ranging from the dense to the light, from large to small formats, from violence to poetry,’ the curator concludes.
Miró Universe arrives in Athens as part of a successful international tour that began in 2019, which has taken the exhibition to the Spain’s embassies in Rome, Berlin, Dublin, Brussels, Paris and New Delhi, the residence of the Spanish Ambassador in Washington, the Centro Cultural de España in Mexico and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. The project is promoted by the Fundació Joan Miró and counts on the collaboration of the Fundación Abertis, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) and the Instituto Cervantes.
About the Abertis Foundation
The Abertis Foundation was set up in 1999 as a non-profit organisation, to contribute to the sustainable development of the different territories and countries in which the Abertis Group is present. In recent years, the Abertis Foundation has succeeded in spreading culture in the territories in which it operates, on bringing the works of leading Spanish artists such as Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Diego Velázquez or Antoni Gaudí to the public in countries such as France, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile or India.
Its other areas of action are the implementation of projects earmarked to improve road safety; social measures aimed at more vulnerable groups; environmental protection, following the agreement with UNESCO to manage the Category 2 International Centre for Mediterranean Biosphere Reserves (UNESCOMED); as well as education, through an Abertis Professorship International Network, which encompasses universities in several of the countries in which it operates, such as France, Puerto Rico, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Italy or Mexico, and which allows universities and companies to be linked in the search for sustainable mobility innovation.
About the Fundació Joan Miró
The Fundació Joan Miró was created by the artist himself and opened its doors to the public in 1975. It is home to a unique collection of Joan Miró’s works, his personal library and an archive of all his preparatory drawings, thus making it a centre of reference for research, dissemination and promotion of the artist’s production and legacy. Since its opening as the first museum in Barcelona dedicated to modern and contemporary art, the Fundació Joan Miró has shared the artist’s work and legacy with the world. With support from public and private institutions, it has promoted and developed international projects and numerous temporary exhibitions. It is also the driving force behind Espai 13, one of the first galleries given over to emerging artists and curators and an active educational space that fosters creativity and a greater understanding of modern and contemporary artistic practices.
4 May 2023
Abertis, through its foundation and subsidiaries in the United States ofAmerica, has helped to take this project to the country in order to promoteSpanish culture and to raise awareness of this selection of works in one of the regions where it has a presence.
20 December 2022
From 19 December 2022 to 19 March 2023, the installation presents four paintings and a sculpture by Joan Miró, as well as photographs by Joaquim Gomis, a friend of the artist and the first president of the Fundació Joan Miró.
