This is the first major exhibition of Joan Miró (1893-1983) to be held in London for almost 50 years. The exhibition is co-organised with the Fundacio Joan Miró Barcelona and it brings together over 150 paintings, works on paper and sculptures by one of the twentieth century’s major artists. The show explores the wider political and historical context of Miró’s work, focusing on his political engagement, his Catalan identity and looking at the influence of the Spanish Civil War and the rise and fall of Franco’s regime on his work.

Miró was among the most iconic of modern artists, evolving a Surrealist language of symbols that evoke 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 this exhibition sets out to explore the more anxious and engaged side to Miró’s practice, reflecting the turbulent political times in which he lived.

The show begins with a room dedicated to ‘Miró the Catalan’, this gallery is full of depictions of the landscapes and traditions that the artist grew up around These early works have a rigorous attention to detail with an emphasis on the graphic mark which he goes on to develop in all of his later work.

The Barcelona Series occupy a long wall in Room 6, this series of fifty lithographs depicts a cast of characters including dictators and innocent victims of conflict, thought to have been conceived in 1939 when Miró was living in Normandy around the time of Britain and France’s declaration of war on Germany, and printed in 1944. In his later series, Constellations , each element, of these densely packed paintings, seems so perfectly placed; in them there is a combination of playfulness and sensitivity of touch with a feeling of distress, an anxiousness of subject matter and an underlying mood of disquiet.

Moving into Room 9 is a joy, the beautiful and bold Message to a Friend is visible in the distance beyond but first a display of Miró’s sculptures, modest in scale these bronze works contain familiar Miró motifs such as The Ladder of the Escaping Eye .

It is the larger scale Miró works that I am most looking forward to seeing and that I enjoy. With their reference to Abstract Expressionism, on a visit to New York in 1947 and again in 1959 he had admired the ambition in the work of the Abstract Expressionists. For me the larger works are like a bird spreading its wings, here a series of five large-scale triptychs are exhibited together for the first time. The Hope of a Condemned Man l, ll, lll 1974 is a light, airy, playful work at odds with its title, containing great lightness of touch whilst creating an air of intense emotion. Miró’s carefully placed graphic marks feel released and are able to breathe at last.

The last room of the exhibition contains a delicate, scroll work, a sort of dictionary of Miró’s graphic language, here marks roams freely across the paperly space. The Ladder of Escape of the exhibition’s title could to refer not just to Miró’s use of art to break away from the political climate that he was inhabiting in Europe; but also the journey of liberation his marks make from tied to depiction to the freedom of the open page and to their energetic full flight seen here in his triptychs.

Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape
Tate Modern, London
14 April – 11 September 2011

S L Mehrnoosh

images:
1. Joan Miró The Escape Ladder 1940 Museum of Modern Art, New York © Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011
2. Joan Miró Hope of a Condemned Man I-II-III 1973 Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona © Successió Miró/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011