My time in Barcelona is rapidly drawing to a close so I thought I’d spend the morning visiting the Fundació Joan Miró, which is situated in the Parc de Montjuïc with excellent views of the City. Quite apart from the strange and wonderful collection of things inside, it’s just a beautiful space to wander around; there’s a sense of light and space which is very refreshing. It took no longer than 30 minutes to reach it from my apartment, via the Metro L3 and the funicular railway from Parallel which takes you within 5 minutes’ walk of the building.
As well as the permanent collection of works by Joan Miró, there are pieces that influenced his development as an artist, such as the 14th Century altarpiece shown above: in his early years, Miró experimented with the very flat perspective often deployed in mediaeval art. The exhibition includes a large range of materials, including sailcloth and wool as well as the more usual oil and canvas; there’s also a mercury fountain. There is also a temporary exhibition by Vietnamese sculptor Tuan Andrew Nguyen whose creations include dynamic shapes evoking explosions made from fragments of unexploded bombs found in his homeland in the aftermath of the Vietnam war.
