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The art of Miró and Calder dialogue in an exhibition in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro, August 19 (EFE).- An exhibition that brings together a hundred works, some rare and even unpublished, all belonging to Brazilian collections, exhibits from this Friday in Rio de Janeiro the close friendship and artistic dialogues between the Spanish painter Joan Miró and the American sculptor Alexander Calder. The “Calder + Miró” exhibition, which includes paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, mobiles, stables, models, jewelry and textiles by the two friends, will be open to the public until November 20 at the Casa Roberto Marinho Institute in Rio de Janeiro, whose collection is a benchmark for modern art in Brazil. “I would define this exhibition as ‘the aesthetics of a great friendship’. They are two great artists who met very young and exchanged experiences until the end of their lives. Being able to bring together several of their works in a unique environment to tell of their friendship is of great importance”, exhibition curator Max Perlingeiro told EFE. The exhibition features 100 works by the two artists (70 by Calder and 30 by Miró) and 60 others by Brazilian painters, sculptors and even architects who, like Antonio Bandeira, Franz Weissmann, Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark, Oscar Niemeyer and Waldemar Cordeiro, they were influenced by the genius of surrealism and one of the main names in modern American sculpture. Among the works on display are two monumental sculptures by Miró, including the famous “Woman Standing”, a nearly two-meter bronze from 1969, and three major works by Calder, including a 1.63-meter-tall model that served model to make the “Bent Propeller”, the gigantic sculpture that disappeared during the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Among the rare works are also hammocks and tapestries made by Calder and given to friends in Brazil, the country which hosted the largest exhibition of textiles by the American artist. “It really is an exhibition of rare works. If I could attract the attention of some, I would highlight the large stables and mobiles by Calder and the monumental sculptures by Miró. Calder’s hammocks are also very strange because they are rarely displayed,” he said. “But there are also important paintings by Miró, such as a nearly two-meter panel, which contrasts, in size, with the easel paintings of this artist, and the surrealist paintings of Calder from 1940 which belong to the Museum of Modern Art de São Paulo. Paulo (MASP)”, he added. The works were loaned for the exhibition by about twenty Brazilian collectors and by MASP, the Museum of Modern Art (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro and the National Museum of Fine Arts The famous friendship and mutual influence between the Catalan painter (1893-1983) and the sculptor from Lawton (1898-1976) began in 1928, when Calder visited Miró in his home and his studio in the Parisian district of Montmartre. This relationship experienced one of its fundamental moments in 1937, when both exhibited their works in the Spanish pavilion of the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris, at the same time as “Guernica”. of Picasso. Miró painted for the occasion the painting mural the “The Reaper”, composed of six panels of 5.5 meters and which has disappeared, and Calder his famous sculpture “Fountain of Mercury”. Another key moment in their dialogue took place in the 1970s, when both, invited by the Brazilian writer and art critic Mario Pedrosa, donated important works to the Salvado Allende Solidarity Museum in Santiago du Chile. The exhibition also reflects the influence of the two on various artists from Brazil, a country with which they had ties. The American traveled to the country several times, where his works were exhibited on several occasions and spaces, the first of which, in 1948, at the recently inaugurated headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Culture, a construction modernist of Le Corbusier and in the creation of which Niemeyer participated. Although he has never visited Brazil, Miró is linked to the country by his close relationship with the Brazilian poet and diplomat Joao Cabral de Mello Neto, one of whose works, “Joan Miró”, has two engravings and a Catalan print. One of the 70 copies of this edition is part of the exhibition. “All the Brazilians present here have been producing since 1950, that is, after the arrival of the two great artists in the country through the biennials. And I have no doubt that the two have left indelible marks on the Brazilians,” Perlingeiro said. Carlos A. Moreno (c) EFE Agency