CALDER / MIRO: CLAIR DE LUNE

Nahmad Projects is pleased to announce “Calder / Miró: Clair de lune,” running from the 22 February to 18 April 2019. The exhibition features sculptures by Alexander Calder and paintings by Joan Miró, exploring the artistic impact of their friendship. The artists’ lifelong affinity lasted from their initial meeting in 1928 through to old age, with continuous correspondence disrupted only by war. Calder’s monumental mobile, Blue and Yellow Among Reds (1964) will dance next to Joan Miro’s great canvas of the same period: Oiseau dans la nuit (1967). The pairing draws attention to the formal and theoretical parallels of these large-scale works.

Innovating in three dimensions, Calder explored “the idea of an object floating … to best approximate this freedom from the earth.” Miró suspended his figures and animals in a twilight zone between the real and subconscious, freeing them from pictorial ground. The artists’ exchange of ideas coloured each of their contributions to the cultural and political questions of their time. Experiments with forms of play unlocked new modes of representation, resulting in the creation of new visual languages. Calder added movement and air space to the vocabulary of abstract art. Miró “destroyed painting” with his use of non-hierarchical materials, and defined a new style that hovers between representation and total abstraction. Their shared revelry in the act of making underpinned a serious drive towards iconoclasm. Joyful and irreverent, the works of Calder and Miró are testament to their lifelong defence of creative freedom.

JOAN MIRÓ (1893-1983) was a Catalan painter who gained international acclaim for his paintings and sculpture. His influence is palpable in his hometown of Barcelona, with public commissions throughout the city. Considered one of the greatest painters of the 20th century, Miró developed a unique approach to abstraction. His work is an intellectual product of interwar Europe, and a response to the upheavals caused by the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. His works appear in the worlds greatest museum collections. There are two museums dedicated to his oeuvre: the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona and Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca.

ALEXANDER CALDER (1898-1976) integrated movement in sculpture, becoming one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century. Manipulating wire in three dimensions, he created “drawings in space.” These early works developed into colour compositions using painted metal. His sculptures energise the space they occupy; they hang from the ceiling, stand on grounded supports, or take the form of static monumental objects. During his lifetime, he completed notable public commissions. His work now appears in major museum collections worldwide including the Guggenheim and MoMA.