Miró is 50 years old, let's celebrate!

There were almost a thousand of us, which is quite a lot. Everyone was happy and eager to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fundació Miró. This Sunday there will be an open house –starting at six in the morning!– with many activities that add to the enticing appeal of visiting this emblematic building, in a privileged location on Montjuïc and featuring a collection of works by one of the greatest artists the city has ever produced. On Wednesday night, the retrospective exhibition, both moving and somewhat mischievous, opened in a festive event where hundreds of people, young and old, remembered and celebrated this half-century since modernity finally made its home in Barcelona.

Some were there from the very beginning, like the gallery owner Carles Taché, who defines Miró as "the miracle artist, because his poetry was able to survive the weight of monsters like Picasso and Braque," or like Rosa Maria Subirana, who had helped Jacques Dupin organize the 1969 exhibition at the Crea de la Antigua Hospital, the artist with Barcelona. "I remember those early days of the Foundation very well," she said, "and even the dispute between Francesc Vicens and Maria Lluïsa Borràs over its direction." Two key figures in the defense of avant-garde art in Catalonia during the darkest moments of Franco's regime. Martina Millà, head of exhibitions at the Foundation and one of the three people in charge of the commemorative exhibition, recalled how the first exhibition organized, on tantric art, was scheduled to open on November 20, 1975. Franco died that day, but Vicens took no notice and the inauguration took place. It was more of a cause for celebration. Those early years, as can be clearly seen in the exhibition, Miró was the epicenter of a good part of the activities related to anti-Francoism and Catalanism and, as the times demanded, also of a certain hippieism. Music, performance, dance, thought, psychiatry, theatre... Everything had a place.

"I started working there in 2006, but I've always been connected to it because my father was one of the Foundation's first friends, and we came often." Public perception of the organization is as follows: "In the 1980s, it was a cultural and intellectual landmark, not just in the art world, but in recent years, as has happened in many art centers, it has become a museum center more focused on the purely artistic field." Young artists had a very prominent presence and felt more at home there. In 2017, Rosa Maria Malet, who believes that part of the success and joy of always visiting the Miró Foundation is due to the perfect combination of the Sert building, Miró's work, and the exhibitions held there. Sara Puig, member of the board of trustees, emphasizes that they have managed to recover the local audience, which now stands at 30%, and that collaborations with all kinds of organizations in the city are being encouraged.

That's why, as Marko Daniel, the current director, exultantly said, "Now is the time to celebrate, without nostalgia, what the Foundation has done throughout its history. Thinking about the people of tomorrow, the public, both here and abroad, the artists, young and established. Thinking, in short, about how, through creativity and research, through commitment to." This is, in fact, the spirit with which Miró was founded. Let's celebrate it. And let's go. It's always worth it.