While in Palma we visited two impressive art exhibitions. First, we continued getting to know Joan Miro, who now seems like a good friend. Late last year we read a very interesting article about Miro’s amazing work ethic and then re-visited the Miro Fundacion museum in Barcelona. Although Miro was born in Barcelona (1893), and spent a lot of his time in Catalunya, his ties to Mallorca were equally strong – his mother was a Mallorquina and so was his wife. In 1956 he moved to the island permanently and ultimately died there at age 90 (1983).
Miro had always dreamed of a large, private studio space where he could toil away uninterrupted and let his creative spirit soar. His dear friend and fellow Barcelona native, modernist architect Josep Lluis Sert, designed Miro’s dream space on the outskirts of Palma. (At the time, Sert was the dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He also designed the Miro Fundacion building in Barcelona, and studios for Alexander Calder and Marc Chagall. Busy guy!)
Visiting the Miro Fundacion in Mallorca is a unique opportunity. Not only does the museum host numerous works by the artist, indoors and out, you can also visit Miro’s work-spaces, which essentially have been left exactly as they were the day he died. He was working right up to the very end. Here is the outside and inside of his main painting studio:
The art and many objects in the studio are copies – the originals are part of the exhibition. But the brushes and other tools are the ones Miro used. In addition, Miro had another work-space for sculpting and engraving on the property. The security guard in that studio was happy to share in detail exactly what Miro was doing his last day in this studio before he retired to bed feeling ill and later died.
It is impressive to see an artist’s personal work-space and try to understand how that space motivated him to create and innovate. The views likely provided inspiration as well:
We also visited the Caixa Forum Palma, which was hosting an exhibit, organized with the British Museum, called “Competition in Ancient Greece.” It included numerous sculptures, urns, and other antique objects portraying the Greek’s obsession with sport, theater, music and war (not necessarily in that order). It was a very compelling and well-designed exhibition, and the contrast between Miro’s abstract art and urns dating back to 500 BC could not have been greater. The well-preserved pieces had tremendous explanations. Interpreting a Grecian urn’s design to understand what is depicted is not an easy task, and a singular urn has less meaning than a varied assortment. Observing a large grouping of these items gave them more significance and context.
Admittedly our “on-vacation-brains” did not think about the famous poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” while we walked through the exhibit. But a quick review of the poem now demonstrated what a great job the curators did in transmitting the major themes of Greek life, including the conflict between the gods and mortals, and the themes of glory and conquest.
Some final pictures of art – a Miro sculpture contrasted with modern pop art:
Shana & Jeff
No comments:
Post a Comment