Miró’s Earth at the Thyssen

Focusing on the Catalan artist’s fidelity to rural and pagan life

The extensive and complex exhibition Miró: Tierra at Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum (June 17 to September 14) presents a survey of Miró’s work in the period between 1918, the year of his first solo exhibition, and his death in 1983. It aims at tracing the whole artistic course of the Catalan artist, giving the opportunity to discover the role he played in the development of the important art movements of the twentieth century, casting a new light on some aspects of his research that so far have been overlooked.

The guiding concept is a recurring theme in his work: the Earth. In contrast to other art historical interpretations which have emphasised the artist’s links with Surrealism, this exhibition focuses on his fidelity to rural and pagan life, his fascination with excess, fecundity -including sexuality- and death. Seen from this viewpoint, Miró’s work in the second half of his life acquires greater importance than is usually accredited to it.

It is indeed the first international exposition to inspect the tie of the artist with the earth in the development of his imaginary and of his art. Mirò is interested in the theme of the earth in its numerous meanings and symbologies; it is the theme that permeate the central researches in his artistic production, like, for instance, the representation of the rural world, of sexuality and fertility, of the cult of the origins, of metamorphosis and the other world, of the eternal alternation of life and death, and the exalting of the matter and the materials that compose the work of art.

The exhibition explores the fascinating interlacing of these themes in Miró’s work through paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings ad litographies coming from the most important public and private collections of the world.