My grandfather was a Miro fan. I'm (slowly) putting together a website on my grandfather's life as an art teacher, struggling to translate German documents and to understand the flavor of the times he lived in.
Miro, unlike my grandfather, found a way to let his disapproval of the Franco regime come out in his art. To an American, raised in the relative freedom of the First Amendment, some of his statements seem rather obscure. For example, after Franco co-opted Miro's art to seem like an expression of not only being Spanish but being pro-Franco, Miro protested by painting a mural on the outside of the art college, then washing it off.
Oh, snap!
My son and I wandered through the exhibit at SAM, enjoying the serendipity of finding Miro's blurry blue spots repeated in a Japanese fan in a nearby room, and admiring the calligraphy of accidental motifs. It does seem clear, though, that modernism has said what it has said and it is time to move on.
A big difference between me and Miro (aside from international renown, of course) is that I am interested in the messiness of life, in clutter, ambiguity, and the femininity of death. There is too much that I want to capture to do art that reduces all to a series of iconic motifs.
Miro, unlike my grandfather, found a way to let his disapproval of the Franco regime come out in his art. To an American, raised in the relative freedom of the First Amendment, some of his statements seem rather obscure. For example, after Franco co-opted Miro's art to seem like an expression of not only being Spanish but being pro-Franco, Miro protested by painting a mural on the outside of the art college, then washing it off.
Oh, snap!
My son and I wandered through the exhibit at SAM, enjoying the serendipity of finding Miro's blurry blue spots repeated in a Japanese fan in a nearby room, and admiring the calligraphy of accidental motifs. It does seem clear, though, that modernism has said what it has said and it is time to move on.
A big difference between me and Miro (aside from international renown, of course) is that I am interested in the messiness of life, in clutter, ambiguity, and the femininity of death. There is too much that I want to capture to do art that reduces all to a series of iconic motifs.
RSS Feed
