Miró-ADLAN: An Archive of Modernity (1932-1936)

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Image courtesy of Fundacio Miró

Miró-ADLAN: An Archive of Modernity (1932-1936) reconstructs the key role of the group of artists and intellectual known as Amics de l'Art Nou ( ADLAN, Friends of New Art) in introducing modernity to the Barcelona of the 1930s, during the years of the Spanish Republic. While in major European cities avant-garde movements had the support of critics and collectors, here modernity needed the impetus of an enthusiastic group that sought to regenerate Catalan culture and adopted Joan Miró as its leader in the promotion of new art.

The exhibition presents documents and ephemera from the ADLAN archive, held in several public and private venues, primarily in the COAC and Fundació Joan Miró archives. ADLAN's secretary Adelita Lobo was an essential figure in documenting and preserving the materials in this archive; invitations, notebooks and posters became objects of memory and now allow us to recreate the group's key role in building modernity in Catalonia, organizing more than fifty events across all artistic disciplines—painting, architecture, music, dance, circus, photography, film, etc.

The show also features a selection of pieces from the five ephemeral exhibitions that Miró held in Barcelona to offer the members of the cultural group a preview of the works that would then travel to Paris, New York, or Zurich. These exhibitions, open only to ADLAN members, provided a laboratory or a test run for the artist and reveal the experimental nature of his work and his persistent collaboration with others involved in the group.

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