“Joan Miró. Protestation” at the Abattoirs in Toulouse features ten works from the Foundation

The exhibition focuses on the final fifteen years of Joan Miró’s career (1968–1983), a particularly intense and experimental period in his output, during which the artist delved into new forms of expression and forged a close relationship with a younger generation of creators.

The exhibition offers a re-examination of this final phase of his career, still little explored, and emphasises Miró’s libertarian, iconoclastic and committed character and his spirit of resistance. In the political context marked by the events of May ’68 in France and the final years of the Franco dictatorship, the artist reaffirmed an openly anti-authoritarian attitude and recovered the radical spirit of his early stages.

The Murder of Painting

The exhibition particularly explores his desire to question the limits of painting, confronting it in a body-to-body struggle, to the point of wanting to “assassinate” it. This attitude, in this final phase, extended beyond the canvas and the art world to also occupy public space.

Central to this journey are Miró’s collaborations with creators such as Josep Royo, in the field of tapestry and textile arts; Pere Portabella, in cinema; and the company La Claca, in theatre. This dialogue with other disciplines gave rise to experiences such as the over-embroideries, the burnt canvases, the film Miró l’autre and the show Mori el Merma, which premiered in Palma in 1978.

With this loan, the Fundació Miró Mallorca contributes to the international recognition of a fundamental period in Joan Miró’s career, marked by his ability to reinvent himself, experiment with new languages and forge links with artists and creators from different disciplines.

The exhibition is curated by Carles Guerra and Lauriane Gricourt, director of Les Abattoirs.