The Political Side of Joan Miró
Aidez L'Espagne. Help Spain. Stencil print (pochoir) in four colors. 1937.
Known mostly for his cosmic surrealist and modernist paintings, a new side of Spanish artist Joan Miró is currently on display at Los Angeles’ National Art Gallery. The show, entitled “Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape” will be on display until August 12, and showcases Miró’s political works. As sacbee.com reports, “People often get nervous when art and politics are mentioned in the same breath, but Miró seems to have understood that politics is merely the means by which we organize our social lives together.” Many of these works were created towards the end of Miró’s life (the artist died in December of 1983), from his murals in the late 60s to his “burnt-paintings” in the 70s. Given that Miró lived through both World Wars and the Spanish Civil War, the political nature of his later work may not come as such a surprise after all.
