Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937

December 11, 2008
12:30 p.m.

This lecture provides an overview of Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937. Long regarded as Surrealism's most lyrical painter, Miró made the notorious declaration in 1927, "I want to assassinate painting." Taking this concept as a starting point, the exhibition begins with the artist's remarkable collage avant la lettre series on unprimed canvas and concludes with his return to realism. Miró's "tactics of aggression" included acidic color, grotesque disfigurement, stylistic heterogeneity, and the use of resistant, readymade materials. This lecture illuminates an underappreciated period of the Miró's career through paintings, collages, objects, and drawings.

Lecturer Adele Nelson (PhD candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University) is a curatorial assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA.