Fundació Joan Miró and Prophetia

Last Saturday, we interns at 1Global Translators decided not to dedicate our stay in Barcelona only to fiesta and Spanish food, so we visited Fundació Joan Miró, a modern art museum located on the top of Montjuic. 

The museum was founded by the Catalan painter and sculptor Joan Miró – born in Barcelona in 1893 and died in 1983 in Palma de Majorca – in order to encourage young artists on the path of contemporary art. Miró wanted to revitalize the Barcelonan artistic environment, supporting the birth of a new artistic generation. 

The collection was opened to the public on 10 June 1975, but its origins can be traced back to the Miró’s exhibition at Hospital de la Santa Creu in 1968. 

The building was ideated by Josep Lluís Sert, Miró’s close friend, and the city of Barcelona bore part of the cost. The style of the building is Mediterrean (low, white buildings with porches) and abstract, surrounded by the park.

Fundació Joan Miró

The Foundation comprises the majority of Joan Miró’s artworks; on the Foundation’s website are listed «14000 pieces: 217 paintings, 178 sculptures, 9 textiles, 4 ceramics, the almost complete graphic works and some 8,000 drawings». Most of the artworks were donated by the author himself to the Foundation.

Fundació Joan Miró: the collection

Moreover, the collection includes works of contemporary artists, representing a tribute to Joan Miró: there are artworks of Pierre Alechinsky, Balthus, Anthony Caro, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Fernand Léger, André Masson, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Antonio Saura, Yves Tanguy, Alexander Calder and Antoni Tàpies.

The Foundation hosts temporary exhibitions, too: when we visited the Foundation, we were able to see Prophetia’s one. It was dedicated to the foundation of the European Union and comprised works by 25 artists: they represent two aspects of being part of the UE, the initial sense of hope and enthusiasm and the actual uncertainty and disillusionment, due to the Economic Crisis of 2007 and to the Bundesbank monetary policies, especially towards the PIGs. 

Personally, there was a particular work I found particularly interesting: it was History Zero by the Greek artist Stefanos Tsivopoulos. On his website, he describes History Zero as a «film of three episodes alongside an archive of text and images. The film questions the value of money and the role money plays in the formation of human relationships by depicting the experiences of three very different individuals; an elderly art collector suffering from dementia, an immigrant trawling the streets for scrap metal, and an artist taking snapshots of the city […]

History Zero, specially commissioned for the Biennale, comes at a critical moment in contemporary Greek and European history. The artist views the culmination of the multi-layered crisis as an opportunity to interpret an alternative visualization of the future. History Zero implies not the end, but a point of departure, of recovery and growth: the beginning of something new. By approaching our relationship with money poetically, from a philosophical perspective, the artist proposes dynamic ways to reaffirm solidarity, cooperation and co-responsibility in response to the present crisis».

History Zero - episode 1

History Zero - episode 2

History Zero - episode 3

It captured me: rare dialogues, the strong prevalence of the photography and a heavy silence make it really expressive. You could observe as money are perceived by different point of views, at different ages and in opposite economic statuses. 

The exhibition Prophetia will be hosted until the 7th of June and, according to me, deserves a visit, especially if you are a young European citizen; moreover, if you appreciate abstract Surrealism, you will like Joan Miró’s collection, since it is the most complete in the world about him.

Carlotta Neueschwander