Notes from a visit to the Fundacion de Joan Miro

Joan Miro is also the person who designed the logo of La Caixia ("The Cash"), the largest bank in Catalunya.

New words:
Retrato – n. portrait
Autorretrato – nm. self-portrait
Paraguas – nf. umbrella
Sol y sombra – sun and shade
Anemacer – v. dawn
Puente – nm. bridge
La estrella matinal – nf. the morning star
El diamante sonrie al crepusculo – the diamond smiles at the sun
Poema – nf. Poem c.f. visual poetry
Estrella fugaz – nf. shooting star

Exhibition I: Permanent Collection of the Works of Joan Miro
Joan Miro was born in 1893 in Barcelona and died on 25 Dec 1983.
He was influenced by Van Gogh, Cezanne, the Fauves, and the movements of Cubism and Futurism.
1918 – picked up the calligraohic style of painting aka Francis Picaba.
1920’s – influenced by the style of Surrealism after a soujourn in Paris
late 1920’s – desire to ‘assassinate painting’ though through the use of collage and assemblage etc.
July 1936 – April 1939 – Spanish Civil War
1960’s onwards – move from reality to sign. Painting besomes not an end in itself, but becomes gestural, to trigger a certain state of mind e.g. meditation. c.f. Japanese painting.

Tryptiches:
a) “Painting on White Background for the Cell of a Recluse” (1968)
b) “Fireworks”
c) “The Hope of a Man Condemned to Death” * (my fav of the three)

Friends who donated works to the Fundacion Miro to commemorate their friendship with Miro:
Man Ray
Richard Serra (“Paciencia”)
Valerio Adami
Antoni Tapies
Robert Rauschenberg
Marcel Duchamp

Exhibition 1: Modernitat Americana: Obras de la Conrcoran Gallery of Art
Modern art in America in the 20th Century, in seven sections:
1) Under the spell of Paris
2) Landscapists s.f. French Symbolists
3) The Impact of the Avant-Garde
4) Photography
Inherently documentary in nature, and therefore linked to the development of realism. Helped bring about change in national laws when the artists showcased real life. E.g. Gordon Parks (convergence of social, documentary and artistic aims)
5) Realism
Contemporary urban life e.g. George Bellows, Edward Hopper (“Ground Swell” (1939) geometric organizational lines, physical and metaphysical time) [realist], Milton Avery [transcendental]
6) Post-War Abstraction
7) Between Abstracion and Figuration e.g. Guy Pene du Bois
1st mvmt: Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Ad Reinhardt / 2nd mvmt: Cy Twombly* (street painting, mythology), Helen Frankenthaler, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Marigold (“5 Colour Frame Painting”)

Europeans in America: Marcel Duchamp, Piet Mondrain, Yves Tanguy