Joan Miró's Thousand and One Forms of Rebellion, in an unprecedented exhibition in Palma

PalmWith more than a hundred works, some of which have never been seen in Mallorca, spread across four venues, the ambitious exhibition project Miró Landscape It was presented this Wednesday in Palma, just before the official openings that will take place between Wednesday and Friday. Thus, starting this Thursday, July 31st, and for the next three months, for the first time, you can fully enjoy a proposal of this nature, which brings together four major exhibitions dedicated to reviewing Miró's career: Miró Mallorca, the exploration of color at the Solleric mansion, coexistence with shadows at the Lonja, and boundless rebellion at Es Baluard. The exhibition was in collaboration with the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, where almost half of the Miró works on display come from, and was curated by Antonia Maria Perelló, director of the Miró Mallorca Foundation; and director of sculpture at the Reina Sofía. All of them were present, along with the mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez; and the artist, who lived on the island for more than three decades, and who was compensated with this exhibition project. "I don't want to belittle everything that has been done in the past, but I have to thank all the institutions for their efforts and work in bringing this exhibition to fruition. I can rest in peace now that the Mironi triangle is over."

The magic spark

In any case, according to the curators, the idea would be for visitors to begin with a visit to the Miró Mallorca Foundation exhibition, the opposite of how it was shown to journalists. In any case, the center located on Saridakis Street, in Cala Major, houses the most diverse exhibition, bringing together works and documents by Miró himself and other artists, from Paul Klee to Wassily Kandinsky, including Eduardo Chillida, as well as objects that inspired the artist and in an inspired way for the artist. "The title of The magic spark "It was born from a phrase written by Miró himself in a notebook in 1943," explained Antònia Maria Perelló, director of the Miró Mallorca Foundation, "where he said that he used chance, that magic spark, as the starting point for art. We have enough information to know that these objects he collected in the fields, or on the beach, or the figurines he fortuitously cut out of magazines were, in fact, basic. It was the beginning of his act of creation." Thus, the exhibition proposal for this space reproduces "a walk where all these objects appear" that connect, in different ways, with the "constellation of artists" who surrounded Miró. "It's curious because a man who had such a shy image managed to build around him," added Perelló about the first exhibition that will open to the public. In fact, it will be this Wednesday, at 8 pm, when it will be officially inaugurated.

The second stop on the tour, if one wishes to follow the organic approach of the four exhibitions, would be the Solleric Casal, although it must be taken into account that these exhibitions are not organized chronologically – most of them combine works from different periods – and that they also function independently. Even so, the Solleric exhibition, under the title The color and its shadow, It allows us to delve into the painter's relationship with one of the fundamental elements of his work, which was probably the seed of all his others: color. "Here we wanted to show painting as color and sculpture as shadow," summarized Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta, General Coordinator of Culture and Tourism at Palma City Council, "while also bringing together icons and elements that transition from one to the other very quickly throughout Miró's career." With references to themes such as the female figure and eroticism, the works on display in this space are mainly from the 1960s and 1970s and allow us to observe how black gained importance in Miró's work from that time. "The paintings on display at Solleric reflect a fondness for primitive art and its symbols, and this has to do with the earth and symbols, but also with early sculptures, with the gesture of placing an object before the fire and observing the reflection that emerges on the cave walls," explained Gómez de la Cómez. Along with the one at Es Baluard, it serves as a "perfect preamble before going to the Lonja."

Coloring among things

And Guillem Sagrera's building houses ten monumental and ghostly figures, all covered in a black patina, which become ten pieces in which "shadows become volume," in the words of Gómez de la Cuesta. Among them is theLunar Bird, a work from 1966 that can usually be seen in the gardens of the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, and which has been a challenge to transport to Mallorca. "Initially, we thought it would be better not to bring it because logistically it was very complicated," the center's director acknowledged with a laugh at the press conference, "but now that we have it here, we are very happy." And the transfer was not the only complication of this part of the exhibition project, as Carmen Fernández Aparicio, the museum's head of sculpture conservation, pointed out. "Exhibiting them in such a wonderful space was a complex task, with that black floor and those high ceilings, but Ignasi Cristià's design has served to highlight the sculptures and, at the same time, adapt them to the space, without making it seem like they are in competition," the curator explained regarding this sculpture exhibition. The initial force, which opens this Thursday.

Finally, the last stop according to the recommended route would be at Es Baluard, where the works of the most disruptive and radical Miró are exhibited within the framework of the exhibition Coloring among things"There are those who say, and I have read this in many books, that Miró was anti-painterly. And I am profoundly against this statement," said David Barro, director of Es Baluard, "because I believe that Miró was anti-conventional in painting, if anything." Among others, this exhibition includes the Landscape of Mont-roig, from 1916, the oldest of those included in the entire exhibition project, in addition to pictorial experiments carried out by painting over the work of other painters or even burning the paintings themselves. "Giving substance to a stain, that's what this exhibition also talks about, because that's exactly what he did. Suddenly, a blue stain can become something more than a blue stain, as he so aptly defended in that painting where he accompanied the stain with the phrase that said that was the color of his dreams. So that was the color of his dreams. So that was the color of his dreams. 18 times," shared Barro, who wanted to underline the rebelliousness that accompanied Miró until the end. "There are those who would have dedicated themselves to continuing to do the same thing; it's what many artists do, because they can be disruptive at the beginning, but then they settle in. And he did exactly the opposite; he wanted to continue rethinking his place in the world and his painting until the very end."