A few thoughts on abstraction/political art and 'Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape' exhibition, Tate Modern, London

We shouldn't underestimate the significance of Joan Miro, currently on show at Tate Modern, 'Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape'. We can see the 20th Century unfold through his work, about 150 works on show, from early Fauvist pieces, through Cubism and into Surrealism. By the 1960's he was responding to the developments in abstraction taking place in both Europe and America. I wonder if we'd have CoBrA, Dubuffet, Tapies, the playfulness of Arte Povera and many other movements that have the same 'naivety' yet retain a strong political presence, if not for the likes of Miro. This work entitled 'Fireworks, I,II,II' is a great triptych about space and spontaneity, from a man in his eighties with fire in his belly.

Joan Miro 'Fireworks, I,II,III' oil on canvas, 1974 (c) Artobserved

Parallels to Robert Motherwell and especially his 'Elegy to the Spanish Republic' as well as his 'Zen' lithographs abound here, they almost echo each other across the Atlantic. Many of the critics in the British press have focused on the early Miro works as the most significant, but I think the curators (see BBC interview with Matthew Gale here and Marko Daniel) have done well in bringing a sympathetic understanding to the late works, showing his experimental and versatile approach to his art-making in the last few rooms of the exhibition.

Robert Motherwell 'Elegy to the Spanish Republic' oil on canvas, 1961. (c) Metropolitan Museum

Most poignant was the last painting in Room 13, entitled 'Tete' (Head) (I unfortunately can't find an image for it). It was a painting started in the 1940's and finished in 1974. It is a black, dark mass with one red beady eye in the centre and a hand in the top left, is it waving or drowning? It has a subtle power suggesting imprisonment, it reminds me of Paul Klee's 'Captive' or 'Embrace' from 1939, that echo a different oppressive era. This is where the strength of Miro lies, in his emotional and political sensibilities with paint as his tool. 

Paul Klee 'Embrace' oil on paper, 1939

Downstairs we passed through the Turbine Hall and saw what remains of Ai Weiwei's 'Sunflower Seeds' being demounted and bagged up. There were signs reminding the public of his subsequent arrest and I thought how apt that last Miro painting of show was, but also how powerful abstraction in painting can be in such difficult times.

'I understand that an artist is someone who, in the midst of others' silence, uses his own voice to say something and who makes sure that what he says is not useless, but something that is useful to mankind.' Joan Miro

Ai Weiwei's bagged up 'Sunflower seeds', Turbine Hall, Tate Modern (c) David Moxon

Miro at Tate Modern, London, April 2011

Joan Miro, Head of a Catalan Peasant, 1925 

Press Release: Tate Modern

Tate Modern  

Joan Miro: The Ladder of Escape

Thursday 14 April – Sunday 11 September 2011

Sunday to Thursday, 10.00–18.00. 

Friday and Saturday, 10.00–22.00. 

Last admission into exhibitions 17.15 (Friday and Saturday 21.15)

Tate Modern will present the first major retrospective of Joan Miró (1893–1983) to be held in London for almost 50 years. Opening on 14 April 2011, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape will bring together over 150 paintings, works on paper and sculptures by one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists. The exhibition will draw on collections from around the world to represent the astonishing breadth of Miró’s output. It will also explore the wider context of his work, bringing to light the artist’s political engagement and examining the influence of his Catalan identity, the Spanish Civil War and the rise and fall of Franco’s regime. 

Miró was among the most iconic of modern artists, evolving a Surrealist language of symbols that evokes a sense of freedom and energy in its fantastic imagery and direct colour. Often regarded as a forefather of Abstract Expressionism, his work is celebrated for its serene, colourful allure. However, from his earliest paintings onwards, there is also a more anxious and engaged side to Miró’s practice, reflecting the turbulent political times in which he lived. This exhibition will explore these responsive, passionate characteristics across six decades of his extraordinary career. 

Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape will examine the artist’s varying degrees of engagement over his lifetime. These are rooted in the complex identity politics associated with Catalonia, as revealed through Miró’s representation of its landscape and traditions. These depictions range across images of rural life, such as The Farm 1921-2 which Ernest Hemmingway bought from the artist in Paris, to the masterly sequence of the Head of a Catalan PeasantAidez l’Espagne and Le Faucheur 1937, as well as more private and troubled responses disguised in the renowned Constellation paintings of 1940, made in the Second World War. The tensions that erupted with the Spanish Civil War in 1935-9 elicited Miró’s explicit protests in 1924-5.

This is in the Tate Collection and is likely to be in the show...

Joan Miro, Women and Bird in the Moonlight 1949

Under Franco’s regime, Miró worked in a kind of internal exile in Spain while cultivating a reputation abroad as a hero of post-war abstraction. Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape will showcase masterpieces from this era, including the sublime The Hope of a Condemned ManMay 1968 and Burnt Canvas II 1973, or creating euphoric explosions of paint in Fireworks 1974, Miró continued to reflect the political mood in his radical and pioneering practice.  triptych 1973. The exhibition will also reveal how he captured the atmosphere of protest in the late 1960s. Whether blackening or setting fire to his works, such as

Joan Miró i Ferrà was born in Barcelona on 20 April 1893 and trained as an artist at the Galí Academy from 1912-15. From 1923, he spent part of each year in Paris and became a key figure in the Surrealist movement. With his young family he remained in France during the Spanish Civil War, but returned to Spain when the Germans invaded in 1940. Miró settled in Majorca and remained based there for much of the rest of his life, travelling for major commissions and exhibitions around the world. He died at home on 25 December 1983. 

Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape is co-organised by Tate Modern and the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, where it will be seen in October 2011, before travelling to the National Gallery of Art, Washington in May 2012. The exhibition is conceived by Tate curators Matthew Gale, Marko Daniel and Kerryn Greenberg in collaboration with Teresa Montaner, curator at Fundació Joan Miró. Rosa Maria Malet, Director, Fundació Joan Miró, and Vicente Todolí, former Director, Tate Modern, are consultants.

Patrick Heron by Janet Street-Porter on The Genius of British Art: Modern Times, C4

It was great to see the broadcaster, Janet Street-Porter on The Genius of British Art on Channel 4, discuss how she came to understand modern art, meeting Heron's daughter Katherine Heron when studying architecture. There is a great moment on the programme where they cut between him in his studio at Porthmeor Studios, he died in 1999, probably in the early 1980's and her stitting there now some 30 years later remembering when she would sit and talk with him about art and watch him painting, it was really quite touching..

Yellow Painting: October 1958 May/June 1959  Oil on canvas, 1524 x 2138 x 30 mm
 Purchased with asistance from Tate Friends St Ives 1999 (c) Estate Patrick Heron

Janet Street-Porter and Katherine Heron discuss this painting which has to be one of his most significant works, I believe this is in Tate Modern or Tate St.Ives... 

 

The Genius of British Art, Channel 4

In the programme she went on to argue how Heron's work of that time was such an antidote to the the dull post war paintings of Lowry and Bratby. My frustration is that we have not understood that British abstraction and especially the 'St.Ives School' have never had the recognition for its significance, when considering how little was taking place in London at the time, which was 'kitchen sink' and a dull form of British (English?) expressionism. Street -Porter goes on to say how Heron's abstractions said 'bollocks to complancy'. It was a great little bit of British televison...

Gerhard Richter at New Walk Art Gallery, Leicester

Gerhard Richter, Abstract Painting, 1994, 225 cm x 200 cm,

Oil on canvas, Catalogue Raisonné: 809-3 © Gerhard Richter 2010.

Any excuse to see a Richter show in the UK. Here is an interesting exhibition in Leicester. Have a read of the press release below:

ARTIST ROOMS
Epoch - Gerhard Richter
2nd October 2010 - 27th February 2011
New Walk Museum & Art Gallery
(In partnership with The City Gallery)

'The German artist Gerhard Richter is considered to be one of the most important living painters in the world. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Richter has exhibited work in every major gallery in the world from The Museum of Modern Art in New York to Tate Modern in London. His influence on the next generation of artists such as Damien Hirst has been enormous.

Much of his work has been an exploration of the ways in which photography has changed the nature of painting over the twentieth century. In some of his first paintings to become famous he created ‘photo-realistic’ images that reproduced the blurring of photographs.

This exhibition, entitled Epoch, is taken from ARTIST ROOMS, a new national collection established by the dealer and collector Anthony d’Offay, jointly owned by Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland. The exhibition also includes a selection of the artist’s multiples, lent by Anthony d’Offay especially for this presentation.

The largest work (48 Portraits) captures many of the themes of interest to Richter including history, painting and portraiture. This key piece is shown alongside several other significant works that show Richter’s diverse practice, from further portrait painting to more abstract images, photographs and prints. 

Through this range of works, Epoch gives an insight into one of the most important artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Anthony d’Offay was brought up in Leicester with New Walk Museum & Art Gallery providing a place of inspiration during his childhood.'