Joan Miró Tries, Fails to Assassinate Painting by Painting

An uneasy balance of power. A stock-market crash. Economic instability. Increasing threats to the future of democracy.

Sound familiar? These aren’t just descriptions of our own time—they are also the characteristics of the era in which the Spanish painter Joan Miró lived and worked. The Museum of Modern Art’s new exhibition “Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-37” explores the developments in the artist’s style during this transformational period.

“Miró... so hot right now,” said Mia Addiego, a first-year student at Kenyon College visiting the exhibit. Despite its ironic tone, Addiego’s comment is indicative of a larger trend in art. Art created during periods of great historical upheaval has recently garnered a lot of attention from spectators and critics alike. “Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914 – 1939,” currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and “Kirchner and the Berlin Street,” which closed last week at MoMA, exemplify this trend.

Kirchner’s paintings of prostitutes in Berlin reflect a sense of cultural degradation characterizing the period immediately before World War I. Although Miro’s paintings are mostly non-representational, they foster a similar sense of violent unease and disillusionment, a reflection of the tense years leading up to World War II.

Miró once famously stated, “I want to assassinate painting.” This declaration summarizes his desire to breach aesthetic norms and transcend traditional notions of medium. His works often contain unusual features—calligraphic words, textured surfaces, and collage elements—that make it difficult to classify them strictly as paintings. In Un Oiseau Poursuit Une Abeille Et La Baisse, Miró uses the words of the title to illustrate the action—a bird following a bee—with dynamic script and feathers that embody the bird. Un Oiseau is part of a series of paintings on unprimed canvases, yet another way in which Miró takes a stab at the traditional painterly tradition.

The exhibit is divided into 12 different series grouped together stylistically and chronologically. This curatorial strategy helps visitors gain a clear understanding of the wide range of Miro’s aesthetic experimentation. It may have been purposefully organized in this fashion to reflect the discontinuities within both Miró’s work and the historical context of his lifetime.

Brandon Storm, CC ’12, who also visited the exhibition, offered an additional perspective. “It was interesting to see how, while modern choreographers were inverting the structure of classical ballet, painters were attempting the same thing with their medium,” he said.

Miró’s work feels particularly relevant to our time. As Nick Miyares, CC ’12, put it: “Our current situation has been compared to the Great Depression. There are definitely a lot of parallels with the ’20s and ’30s.” Miro’s work proves that perhaps the most interesting and inspiring art is created during the bleakest moments of human history.