Joan Miró: Protest, Without Ceasing
Opening lecture of the series ‘Joan Miró. Protest’
By Carles Guerra and Lauriane Gricourt, exhibition curators
The exhibition ‘Joan Miró. Protest’ highlights the artist’s ability to maintain a radical stance fuelled by the attacks he endured at various points in his career. From the beginning to the end of his life, he experienced periods when his work was defaced, denigrated and violently criticised. In Joan Miró’s work, protest draws strength from insults, stigmatisation, hurtful words and discredit to bring forth a reaffirmed, consolidated and strengthened identity.
Far from the complacent image in which Miró is often portrayed, this lecture — which explores the key themes of the exhibition ‘Joan Miró. Protest’ at Les Abattoirs — reveals an artist who reinvents and deepens the dialectical spirit of painting. We thus discover an anti-authoritarian Miró, confronting the fascism of his time, and a Miró in tune with the energies of younger generations, even whilst he was already a famous octogenarian. This is the Miró we deserve.
The lecture will be translated into French Sign Language.
