A very correct decision... that must be carefully executed. A decision that, incidentally, can serve to go further. Yesterday, Aena announced that the large ceramic mural created by Joan Miró with ceramist Josep Llorens Artigas in 1970 and which has greeted visitors to the old Barcelona airport terminal for decades will be moved to T1 designed by Ricardo Bofill. the applause of the cultural world. That he remembered, yes, the precision with which the artist calculated it for that space. A cultural world that, following this bet, demanded in many cases that the airport itself be named Joan Miró, a figure of international importance whose art, always connected with the sky, will now once again greet the majority of its travelers.
Marko Daniel, director of the Fundació Joan Miró, highlighted yesterday that “it is a very good idea and in accordance with Miró's intentions, who stated in his instructions that the mural could be moved if this terminal were no longer the most important. “At the foundation we are very excited. Of course, it has to be done well, the challenge is great in the transfer of a ceramic mural like this, and luckily there are still living people involved in its construction, especially the family of Joanet Artigas. And he recalls that a “very clear” precedent for this type of transfer is Miró's ceramic mural, smaller but very large, which is in the MNAC and comes from the IBM headquarters in Barcelona. “Contemporary mosaics and historical works have been moved many times, there are techniques, what is unique is the scale, it is one of the largest works imaginable. “A mural that needed a new location was now lost.”
Aena has not yet spoken with them about the location, but highlights that “looking at the terminal as travelers we have had ideas of how it could be done, I will be happy to talk to Aena about the location and the procedure. I want it to have maximum visibility, it is a magnificent mural that Miró invented to welcome all travelers. The more visible, the better. “It has the capacity not only to welcome but to do so with joy.”
The president emeritus of Catalan art critics, Daniel Giralt-Miracle, emphasizes that “the transfer is fundamental, an intelligent idea. Transportation has to be done well, but in Catalonia we know a lot about that, I hope it will be a great achievement.” And he also remembers that “Miró's idea of welcoming those who arrived through the three entry points in Barcelona is great. For the boats, the mosaic of the Pla de l'Ós on the Rambla, for those arriving by road, a sculpture in the Parc Cervantes – Woman, Bird and a Star, dozens of meters long, which was not built and whose model is in the Fundació Miró– and the airport mural for the air. Entering Barcelona is entering Miró's world.” And he asks that the airport “be called Joan Miró because it is more universal than the beloved Tarradellas.”
For the artist Frederic Amat, who has worked since the beginning of the nineties with the Artigas ceramists and is the patron of their foundation, “beyond the nostalgia of having been the scene of departures and arrivals from Barcelona for so many years, it is very positive that the mural goes to the place it deserves, to the epicenter of arrival by air from Barcelona, what Miró wanted. May you have the embrace of this ceramic mural from heaven from this airport that today is called Tarradellas and that could already be named after Miró.”
That said, Amat remembers that “Miró was very meticulous with the intention and intuition he had with the spaces. Airport mural projects have a scale, a proportion. Sometimes these models, if not thought through, are wrong in scale or location. It has to be done carefully. In Miró there was a deep intention for the location, for the weight of the stains and for the great secret of his work, balance. A poor arrangement or installation can break the balance of the mural. A relocation has to be very well thought out, the proportion, how the light enters.”
Mateu Hernández, general director of Turisme de Barcelona, concludes that “in terms of the city's projection to the world, it is extremely important that the gateway for the millions of visitors it has, whether for congresses or leisure, has Miró well present. . It is the best way to explain Barcelona to the world. For the culture and for its geniuses.”
