Art critic and historian, Daniel Giralt-Miracle (Barcelona, 1944) has retired from the profession and has made an unusual gesture: he has given his entire collection of works of art (paintings, engravings, posters, etc.) to various museums and archives. ..), the library (more than 30,000 books) and the legacy of the printing press of his father, the typographer and graphic designer Ricard Giralt Miracle; Based on this transfer, an exhibition and a catalog devoted to his figure have been held this year. Now his next project is some memoirs, already very advanced, of which a tasting is advanced here.
What influence did your father exert?
My father was my best teacher, friend and confidant, I have had an exceptional affinity and respect for him. When I was seven years old, he already took me to galleries and museums. I studied Philosophy and Letters in the morning and in the afternoon I was a delivery boy for Filògraf, with 600. I was an apprentice. He took the proofs to Espriu, Foix, Tàpies, Bohigas... and had the opportunity to speak with them. The most generous was Espriu, who gave me 5 duros.
Is that how you met Joan Miró?
I had an intense treatment when my father proposed to him in 1975 to make a plaque illustrating the poem És quan dormo que hi veig clar by J.V.Foix. One day, when Miró was preparing Mori the merma, he places several invitations on my table and he tells me: “You who understand graphic arts, which one is the prettiest”. I stand still, but point to one. "That's the one I like," he replies. The afternoons with Miró were wonderful, neither proud nor stiff, but attentive, polite, he did not do the same with Dalí, although the relationship with me was cordial.
He even organized a book launch for her.
He worked for the Blume publishing house and it was done on Tuset street. He arrives, he puts his hand on my shoulder and says: “Now what does Dalí have to do?”. I answer: “Do the divine”. And the show began. Later I saw him several times in Portlligat... And the day he died, Margarita Obiols phoned me on behalf of the mayor Pasqual Maragall and told me that that night he should be given the city's gold medal, which had already been awarded to him. granted. We went up to Figueres and on the corpse of Dalí in pajamas we put the medal.
In 1966 he began to work as art critic at Destino.
Néstor Luján invites me to collaborate. And after a sleepless night, I criticize, with the help of my father, an exhibition by Francesc Todó in the Gaspar room. I haven't read it again for fear.
He was then part of a generation of unrepeatable art critics: Corredor Matheos, Cirici Pellicer, Santos Torroella, Arnau Puig...
Certain. Then there was the Spanish Association of Art Critics, and in order not to put a Catalan president they made Alberto del Castillo vice president. We did not understand it and with Pep Vallès, Corredor Matheos and Maria Lluïsa Borràs we promoted the Catalan Association. With my friend Vallès we make the statutes and with Arnau Puig we go to the Civil Government to regularize them. This is how the Catalan association is created, with Cesáreo Rodríguez Aguilera, president, and Madrid accepts it. There was also the AICA, an international association, but they don't let us in because it's for countries. We discovered that in Madrid they do not pay the annual fees and we began to do so. And they recognize us!
Isn't art criticism now experiencing its best moment?
The artistic categories are not what they were, the academies have been misplaced. The canons have been transgressed and new technologies and the metaverse come into play. It also happens in the cinema or dance.
At a certain moment did you enter politics?
The Minister of Culture Max Cahner calls me. My father had explained to me what the Commonwealth had done and I work in this spirit. It will be a disappointment. We have little power and little budget, we sell enthusiasm throughout Catalonia and we don't get there. But those of us who worked at that time did so with conviction, dedication and patriotism.
Do you also have this disappointment when you direct the Macba?
All my performance at the Servei d'Arts Plàstiques is to prepare the Macba. The Ministry and the Board of Museums wanted a collection from Dau al Set. And the City Council and the Fundació wanted a museum of the future, of what was done abroad. And that has led to continuous tensions. A consortium is difficult to govern and the thesis of the City Council prevails. Many Catalan artists felt excluded. Luckily, this country work is now being carried out, little by little, by the MNAC with Pepe Serra and Àlex Mitrani.
Is Gaudí another of your great passions?
I had Gaudí's ideas coming from Jordi Bonet, Cirici Pellicer, Cirlot, and especially Cèsar Martinell. Meeting Martinell and his explanations of double curvature ruled geometry was like the conversion of Pablo de Tarso. Later, when I do the great exhibition on Gaudí del Tinell, they accuse me of being a scientist. The key was the investigation of form. The Sagrada Família had already taken the turn of asking Margarit and Buxadé, professors of structures, to study the way of building in the future, which was not with bricks and masons but with prefabricated elements and modern technologies. Gaudí was neither mystical nor reckless, but had a scientific mentality.
He was Curator of the Gaudí International Year.
The Barcelona City Council commissioned me, and President Pujol and Minister Vilajoana did not clearly see a great international exhibition. One day, summering in Viladrau, I send a letter to Pujol. The next day he calls me in Palau. While he spoke, Pujol did not stop walking. At the end he tells me: "But will it be clear that Gaudí is Catalan and Catholic?" I tell him: “President, with a whole beatific life dedicated to architecture, it cannot be explained in any other way”. He then he raises his hand and says, "Go ahead."
