One hundred and forty representative works of art, of the revolutionary language and experiments that characterized about 60 years of his long existence (1893-1983), leaving an indelible mark on the art and culture of our time: with a collection of works created between 1924 and 1981. Little known to the general public, since they belong to private Italian and French collectors, the works on display are presented in a path divided into 8 thematic areas: Lithographs; Posters; Poetry; Ceramics; Derrière le Miroir; Painting; Music; Miró and his friends, each of which refers to the passions and crossings of Miró's art that make Achille Bonito Oliva say that "The secret of his planetary success is a mix of sign and color that, grafted onto a free, joyful and intellectually cultured spirit, have allowed this little man to become a giant in the history of art of all time".
In particular, the exhibition features some examples of hand-painted ceramics and the lithographic plates drawn to accompany the verses of Parler Seul by the Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara (1950), as well as the beautiful sketches for the staging of L'Uccello Luce (1981) by Silvano Bussotti, created for the Venice Biennale. The exhibition is also enriched by a small section entitled Miró and his friends, including about ten works by Man Ray, Picasso, Dalí, and photographs by Cohen and Bertrand, as well as books and documents by the poets Breton, Éluard, Chair, Tzara, to highlight Miró's various connections with the world of art and culture of the time.
The creative genius of Mirò
The exhibition aims to bring to the visitor's attention, in particular, three aspects of the artistic creativity of the Catalan genius born in Barcelona: the revolution of artistic language ‒ brought from an introspective space to a balance between abstract and figurative, such as to realize a principle of impossibility, in which art overcomes every type of boundary; the dreamlike and lyrical dimension ‒ permeated by the unbridled freedom of a sensitivity translated into color, matter and signs where rationality, in a historical context in which political dictatorships will mark some of the darkest moments for Spain and the rest of the world, is silent; and, finally, the tenacious capacity for resistance, in which the joie de vivre and expressive fervor are realized in a language of its own, in the elusive and primitive dimension of the deepest self.
It starts from a youthful affirmation of the Catalan artist Maïthé Vallès-Bled, Honorary Chief Curator of the Museums of France and Co-curator of the exhibition to characterize her interpretative style "The art of the future, after the great French Impressionist movement and the liberating movements, post-Impressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Fauvism, tends in any case to emancipate the artist's emotion and give him absolute freedom". Faithful to this principle, "Miró – he says – has always firmly affirmed "the path that will be his from the early twenties: that of total freedom in giving vent to the power of intuition and spontaneity. This instinctive conviction of the artist finds an echo first in Dadaism and then, in 1924, in the meeting with André Breton, Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard. The Surrealists capture in his painting a new, dreamlike universe, of simple, bare and unreal forms, which they recognize as their own and thus welcome him into their group, of which he signs the manifesto. However, unlike surrealism, which distanced itself from any representation of visible and external reality, Miró demonstrated an independence of spirit with respect to the group, whose dogmas he did not follow at all, as Breton constantly reproached him - even though he recognized that his work "testifies to a freedom that has never been exceeded".
Where to place this anomalous artist, asks Vincenzo Sanfo, Italian co-curator of the exhibition?
"It is not easy: having associated himself with the Bretonnian surrealists in his youth, he quickly distances himself from them, not having much in common with the sexual digressions of a good part of them, nor with the immoderate and sometimes disorderly desire to amaze with unlikely juxtapositions, often completely gratuitous. Miró draws from the world of surrealism the only thing congenial to him, that freedom of expression that will make him what we all know and that will allow him not to be pigeonholed into a specific movement, being in effect, his, a sort of writing and world in itself, which is born inspired by his gestural imagination. Miró rarely makes preparatory drawings or studies for his works, having, within his mind, a capacity for concentration and rapid, immediate explanation, capable of making a simple stain, a tiny sign, spring forth those masterpieces that we all know. Miró draws his inspiration not from the unconscious, but from his extraordinary capacity for abstraction from the world of reality, approaching, in my opinion, more to the instinctive form of a Pollock, of a Wolso, in the context of a childish inspiration, to the delicate compositions of a Klee”.
Mirò, The Dream Builder – Exhibition curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Maïthé Vallès-Bled and Vincenzo Sanfo. Rome – Fanteri Historical Museum. 14 September – 23 February 2025
