Miré a Miró

The morning was a relaxing one; I’m finally a third of the way through Bill Clinton’s tome of a memoir (!), which has a very conversational tone and which is helping me to understand a bit more about the world of politics.

My day as a tourist began at around 2 pm, when I made my way to Montjuic.  For anyone who has visited the city, Montjuic is that hill that overlooks everything and has a rather impressive looking fortress thing on top.  For those of you who can remember 1992 (present company excluded) it’s where all the shenanigans were happening in Barcelona when it hosted the Summer Olympic Games, including the incredible victories of the USA Dream Team.  I made it to neither the fortress nor the stadium, and instead entered a dreamy realm of semi-reality in the form of the Fundació Joan Miró,

a museum dedicated to the work of the eponymous Catalan artist.  Indeed, he created the museum for himself and commissioned an architect friend (all the artists were buds, as you realize during the exhibit when they donate a famous piece of theirs to “round out the collection”) to design the museum specifically for his work. 

 Note the great view of the city behind the statue.

 From the rooftop statue collection.

The title of this post, which literally translates to “I watched Miró”, is not quite accurate.  While I did watch a 15-minute video about him at one point today, I spent most of it gazing in confusion at his varied works and trying to find the birds, human figures, and symbolism described by the reassuring British voice of my audioguide.  One piece in particular, a gaudy, knobby tapestry,

was created specifically for one of the walls.  I guess it must be nice to be recognized during your lifetime, enough to justify your own museum.  Miró’s tapestries involved strange elements juxtaposed on the same canvas, including: footprints, weavings, rope, Balearic fishing baskets, umbrellas, gloves, tassels, and paint.  He also dabbled in ceramics and sculpture, though he is best known as a painter.  Here are a few of my favorites: (note the elaborate names; Miro got very into poetry)

 "Hands Flying Off Toward the Constellations"

"Monument Raised in the Ocean to the Glory of the Wind".  This one reminds me of The Little Mermaid, because it has a bird sitting in the hole and a fork on top.  Tell me you get that reference, or go watch The Little Mermaid immediately.

"Bottle of Wine."  I only like it because there's a volcano in the bottom of the wine bottle.  How cool would that be in real life?

And this one has the best title of all:

"The Lark's Wing Encircled With Golden Blue Rejoins the Heart of the Poppy Sleeping On the Diamond-Studded Meadow"

Things I learned:

1. Umbrellas were very important symbolically to Surrealists
2. Miró really liked symbolically exaggerating female genitalia
3. Miró did not identify with the Abstract art movement at all, since he viewed all his creations as grounded in reality
4. Jackson Pollack was a follower of Miró after Miró’s visit to the US and NYC MOMA exhibit
5. Every artist has to have a Dada moment

There was also a temporary exhibit featuring work by Joaquin Gomis, a photographer who was the head of the Miró Foundation for several years.  He favored photographs of geometric objects or object arrangements (people, mugs, tiles, twigs, chairs, weavings), beaches, and interesting patterns of light.  Gomis is responsible for the idea of exploring everyday or well-known objects from every possible angle.  He created several books on topics from eucalyptus trees to Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia using this technique.  I can’t find any of his photos of fishing nets online, which were my favorites, or any of the ones of Texas, but here are a few examples of Barcelona in the late 1940s and chairs atop a mountain in Switzerland:

See more here

Afterward, I wandered about Montjuic a bit, stumbling upon a local soccer game and a some beautiful parks.

Then, back in the city, I took another walk around Barceloneta in a (failed) attempt to meet up with Naaman and her new flat mate.

A stand selling masks, as part of a small market

 This statue and the one below were apparently made by the same artist (note: this is hearsay and currently unconfirmed).  You'd never guess, right?

Foodie moments of the day:
(1) I cooked some of my gourmet meatballs from the Boquería market and they were delicious

(2) On the way back from Barceloneta, I stopped and bought a pan au chocolat from the McCafe out of sheer curiosity.  Definitely not up to Parisian standards, but it satisfied my sweet tooth.  And quenched any desire I had to go there.
(3) So I lied.  My sweet tooth was not satisfied, so I also stopped at Farggi, a gelato chain.  I was skeptical, but once I tried their mango gelato with a raspberry swirl, I was a goner.  You know how I am about raspberries.

Spotted: Bachelorette parties.  They’re all over the city; I see at least one person in a tiara/veil flanked by a posse in matching t-shirts every few days.  Today’s example was particularly wonderful: in the middle of a busy pedestrian area in Barceloneta, this group was dancing and singing at the top of their lungs (I witnessed the Macarena) while one of them blew a whistle like a drill sergeant.

They even saw me taking a picture and posed.  What good sports!