Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937

A Conversation between Joan Punyet Miró and Anne Umland

Organized by The Catalan Center at New York University, an affiliate of the Institut Ramon Llull, this evening features Anne Umland, a curator in MoMA's Department of Painting and Sculpture and the organizer of the exhibition Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937, in conversation with Joan Punyet Miró, grandson of Joan Miró and coauthor of the recent catalogue raisonné of Miró and Josep Llorens Artigas's ceramics. The conversation is moderated by Edward J. Sullivan, Dean for the Humanities, New York University. The event is organized with the collaboration of the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center.

Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting

Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937

Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937

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.
Lecturer Rhys Conlon (MA candidate, Hunter College) is an administrative assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA.

Joan Miró: New Approaches

To mark the close of the exhibition Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937, MoMA hosts a daylong symposium to consider issues surrounding the artist's creative production during a transformative decade within his long career. A distinguished group of international scholars offer new approaches to this period of the artist's work, examining its relation to the crisis of painting in Surrealism, the specific nature of the French and Catalan avant-gardes of the time, and the broader sociopolitical situation that emerged in Europe as the 1920s came to an end and the political tensions that would lead to World War II became increasingly apparent. Participants include Dawn Ades, Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex, and Co-Director of the Centre for Studies of Surrealism and its Legacies; Juan José Lahuerta, Professor, History of Art, Escola Técnica Superior d'Arquitectura, Barcelona; Susan Laxton, art historian (PhD, Columbia University); David Lomas, Reader in Art History, University of Manchester, England; Robert S. Lubar, Associate Professor, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; Jordana Mendelson, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese, New York University; and Charles Palermo, Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Art and Art History, The College of William and Mary. Anne Umland, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, and organizer of the exhibition, introduces the day's presentations. The symposium closes with a roundtable discussion.

10:00–10:20
Welcome and Introduction, Anne Umland

10:20–10:50
"Miró's Challenge to Painting: A Dialogue with Picasso, 1924–1930," Robert S. Lubar

10:50–11:20
"Turning Bodies," Charles Palermo

11:20–11:50
"Anti-Painting and Espagnoles," Juan José Lahuerta

12:00–1:30
Lunch Break

1:30–2:00
"Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and the Catalan Avant-Garde c. 1928," Dawn Ades

2:00–2:30
"Telephone Game," Susan Laxton

2:30–3:00
"Grounds for Painting: Joan Miró's Object (Object of Sunset) (1936)," David Lomas

3:00–3:15
Afternoon Break

3:15–3:45
Response, Jordana Mendelson

3:45–4:45
Roundtable Discussion and Q&A

Joan Miró's Influence on Graphic Design

Reflecting upon the recent exhibition Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927–1937, this lecture explores the profound influence that Miró's unconventional painting, collage, and assemblage techniques have had on graphic design in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Celebrated American graphic designer Paul Rand, for example, consistently utilized Miró's oeuvre as a point of departure for creative design assignments for students. Through a comparison of Miró's works with those of Rand and other designers, this lecture considers how Miró's revolutionary approach effectively altered the formal language of communication design.

Lecturer Marianne Eggler, (MPhil, The Graduate Center, City University of New York) is a historian of art, architecture, and design. She is completing her doctorate at The Graduate Center and is currently a lecturer at Parsons The New School of Design, CUNY John Jay College, and The Museum of Modern Art.