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5/5/2012

Joan Miro'

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Washington, DC (updated April 16, 2012)—Celebrated as one of the greatest modern artists, Joan Miró (1893–1983) developed a visual language that reflected his vision and energy in a variety of styles across many media. On view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, East Building, from May 6 to August 12, 2012, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape reveals the politically engaged side of Miró through some 120 paintings and works on paper that span his entire career. They reflect the artist's passionate response to one of the most turbulent periods in European history that included two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, and the decades-long dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Through it all, Miró maintained a fierce devotion to his native Catalonia, a region in northern Spain.

The exhibition was organized by Tate Modern, London (April 14 through September 11, 2011), in collaboration with Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (October 14, 2011, through March 18, 2012), and in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

"Telling the story of Miró's life and the times that he witnessed reveals a dark intensity of many of his works. Behind the engaging innocence of his style lie a profound concern for humanity and a sense of personal identity," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art, Washington. "The Gallery is honored to be the only U.S. venue for this landmark exhibition, and we are grateful to the many lenders, both public and private, who made the exhibition possible."

Exhibition Support

The exhibition is made possible through the generous support of the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.

Additional support is provided by Buffy and William Cafritz.

The Institut Ramon Llull is an exhibition sponsor in Washington and London.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

The Exhibition

Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape traces the arc of Miró's career while drawing out his political and cultural commitments. The exhibition presents these themes through three principal periods: Miró's early work, rooted in the Catalan countryside, and then transformed under the influence of the surrealists in the 1920s; his artistic response to the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the fall of France, and life under fascist rule; and the artist's late work just before the demise of Francisco Franco's dictatorship in 1975.

The first room of the exhibition explores Miró's early work and his so-called detailist style. Focusing on the Catalan coastal village of Mont-roig, where Miró spent most of his summers, the paintings include scenes of his parents' farmhouse, the village church, and the region's tilled fields. Critical works from this period include Vegetable Garden with Donkey (1918) and The Farm (1921–1922), a painting that Miró regarded as a key work in his career. Painted in Paris, it combines Miró's memories of Mont-roig with elements of cubism, abstraction, and primitivism. Ernest Hemingway purchased The Farm shortly after it was painted. Years later, in 1987, Mary Hemingway donated it as a gift to the National Gallery of Art. Two important works painted just a few years after The Farm, The Hunter (Catalan Landscape) (1923–1924) and The Tilled Field (1923–1924), reflect not only the liberating influences of surrealism, but also Miró's own maturity.

Drawing upon the surrealists' interest in free association, Miró created a series of "animated landscapes" where he used only rich fields of color and a handful of forms. Miró juxtaposed animals with unrelated objects: a hare with a spiraling sphere in Landscape (The Hare) (1927); and a dog and rooster, respectively, with a ladder in Dog Barking at the Moon (1926) and Landscape (Landscape with Rooster) (1927). In these early appearances, the ladder motif suggests a bridge between earth and heaven, and reality and imagination.

Though he was born in metropolitan Barcelona, Miró identified with the peasant, which he took as an emblem of Catalan nationalism. In his Head of a Catalan Peasant (1924–1925) paintings, Miró reduced the face and body of the figure to abstracted symbols (including the peasant's barretina, or red cap). His self-identification with this figure, at a time when Catalonian autonomy was under siege from the government of Miguel Primo de Rivera, suggests these works may have been a direct political statement. The exhibition in Washington brings together multiple canvases from the series.

In 1929 Miró married Pilar Juncosa and they settled in Paris, but returned to Barcelona (the capital of Catalonia) in 1932. Working in Barcelona, Miró was well aware of the turmoil and uncertainty preceding the Spanish Civil War. He initially remained in Spain after the war began in July 1936, but by the end of the year he and his family went into self-exile in France. They followed the war from afar until the approaching Nazi troops forced them back to Spain in 1940, when they settled on the island of Mallorca. More than any others in his career, the works Miró made during this period depict war and violence. Some works conjure the fearful times through their distorted imagery: figures crying in anguish, raising their arms in protest, standing by a volcano waiting to erupt. Other works evoke the danger through garish colors or violent application of their materials. Still Life with Old Shoe (1937), with its acid colors and distorted objects, transforms a tabletop still life into a profound commentary on the dramatic times.

While Miró's political statements were oftentimes subtle, the exhibition also showcases works that demonstrate overt resistance—such as Aidez l'Espagne (Help Spain) (1937). This work is an original design for a one-franc stamp in support of Spain's Second Republic; however, France's adoption of a nonintervention agreement stopped the stamp's production and the work became a poster instead. Initially exhibited clandestinely in Spain, the Barcelona Series of lithographs (1944), more than 40 of which are on view, draws upon traditions of political caricature and takes aim at tyranny and dictatorship.

The final two rooms of the exhibition cover the last years of Franco's rule, when Miró, influenced by abstract expressionism, turned to making monumental paintings, both calm and explosive. The works alternate between a growing dissatisfaction with the regime and a feeling of hopefulness as the rebellions of the 1960s prompted political change elsewhere. Miró's grand abstract paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Mural Painting I–III (1962) and Fireworks I–III (1974), became a mark of his resistance and integrity in the final years of the regime, a period of intense self-examination for the artist.

In Composition and Untitled (both 1972)—scroll-like works on Japanese paper that extend nearly 30 feet—Miró demonstrates a graphic flair that characterized his work throughout his life. These two works are on view in the National Gallery of Art Library along with Miró's introduction and lithograph from a 1972 Alexander Calder exhibition catalogue from the Sala Pelaires Gallery in Palma de Mallorca, where Miró was a resident. By that time friends with Calder for 40 years, Miró created an introduction that comprises a series of recollections from their friendship in both French and Catalan, illustrated with colorful shapes and symbols.

Franco's last years in power were marked by mass unemployment and a cycle of protest and crackdowns. The tension culminates in Miró's Burnt Canvases from 1973, where he splashed paint onto a canvas, torched it, and then walked across the surface. He attempted to harness what he called the "inventive force" of fire.

Curators and Catalogue

The exhibition was curated by Marko Daniel and Matthew Gale, Tate Modern, in collaboration with Teresa Montaner, curator, Fundació Joan Miró. It is coordinated at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, by Harry Cooper, curator and head, modern and contemporary art.

Published by Thames and Hudson in association with Tate Modern, London, the exhibition catalogue includes essays by Daniel, Gale, and Montaner, with contributions by Christopher Green, Kerryn Greenberg, William Jeffett, María Luisa Lax, Robert S. Lubar, and Joan M. Minguet Batllori. The 240-page catalogue includes 200 illustrations and is available for purchase in the Gallery Shops in hardcover and softcover. To order, please visit shop.nga.gov; call (800) 697-9350 or (202) 842-6002 Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST; fax (202) 789-3047; or e-mail mailorder@nga.gov.

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Musical Scores for Chomón Short Films Premiere: Sunday, May 6, at 4:30 p.m

Washington, DC—On Sunday, May 6, at 4:30 p.m.—opening day of the exhibition Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape—the National Gallery of Art presents a program of visionary Spanish filmmaker Segundo de Chomón's (1871–1929) masterful trick films. The films will be accompanied by the premiere of new musical scores composed by young composers from New York University's prestigious Steinhardt Film Scoring Program including Nicole Brady, Sergi Casanelles Abella, Agatha Kasprzyk, David Marenberg, Jessie Montgomery, and Tomas Peire Serrate, and directed by Ronald Sadoff. The scores will be performed by members of the National Gallery Orchestra and conducted by Gillian Anderson.

The composers have cast their scores, which are drawn from a variety of traditional Catalan music from the era, in tandem with period composition practices. Chomón's endlessly inventive and surreal stories are complemented by scores that highlight his humor, narrative line, and a wealth of delightful physical gestures.

This program is free of charge in the East Building Auditorium. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

The program is supported in part by The Sorel Organization for Women in Music.

Film Program

The program includes ten short works by Chomón, illustrating connections between the early cinema and pantomime, witchcraft, magic, folktale, technology, and the theater.

Les Cents Trucs (1906)
Music by Agatha Kasprzyk

Les Tulipes (1907)
Music by Sergi Casanelles Abella

Les Oeufs du Pâques (1907)
Music by David Marenberg

Le Spectre Rouge (1907)
Music by Jessie Montgomery

Une Excursion Incohérent(1909)
Music by Tomas Peire Serrate

La Corriente Eléctrica (1906)
Music by Tomas Peire Serrate

Electric Hotel(1908)
Music by Sergi Casanelles Abella

Le Pied du Mouton (1907)
Music by Nicole Brady

En avant la Musique (1907)
Music by Tomas Peire Serrate

Le Voyage sur Jupiter (1909)
Music by David Marenberg

All films are from the collection of Filmoteca de Catalunya (Catalan Film Archive) in Barcelona.

Segundo de Chomón

A pioneer of enchanting special effects, fantastical narratives, and animation, Segundo de Chomón (1871–1929) rivaled his contemporary, the famous French magician Georges Méliès, as the leading animator in the early years of cinema. Chomón began his career in Barcelona in 1902 making newsreel shorts and stop-motion trick films (delicate sleights-of-hand accomplished through filming his subject, stopping the camera, making quick substitutions, and then resuming the filming). From 1905 to 1909 he worked in France, where the public could compare Méliès' Trip to the Moon with Chomón's Voyage to Jupiter. They could see the latter's technical prowess in the trick films he made for Pathé or with the Italian director Albert Capellani. In 1910, Chomón returned to his native Spain to set up his own production house. His inventiveness in the realm of fantasy is legendary—he even contributed special effects to Gabriele D'Annunzio's Cabiria (1914) and Abel Gance's epic Napoleon (1927).

Gillian Anderson

Conductor and musicologist Gillian Anderson specializes in the relationship between music and moving images and has conducted throughout the United States as well as in Europe, South America, and Canada. Her performances have been described as "triumphant" (The Washington Post), "extraordinary" (Edward Rothstein, The New York Times) and "an enormously involving experience" (Tom Di Nardo, Philadelphia Daily News). She has been featured on a number of television programs, most notably "CBS Sunday Morning" and "All Things Considered Weekend." Together with Ronald Sadoff she founded and is the co-editor of the online journal Music and the Moving Image, published by the University of Illinois Press.

Image: Self-Portrait, 1937-1938-February 23, 1960, oil and pencil on canvas, Collection of Emilio Fernández, on loan to the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

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