Catalan master Miro comes to Sakıp Sabancı Museum

ISTANBUL

Many of the works included in the exhibition are appearing for the first time in Turkey.

The Sakıp Sabancı Museum (SSM) in Istanbul is hosting a comprehensive exhibition featuring one of the 20th century’s most important artists, Catalan artist and sculptor Joan Miro.

The exhibition, titled “Joan Miró. Women, Birds and Stars,” focuses on the mature period of the groundbreaking and versatile artist. Sponsored by Sabancı Holding and organized in collaboration with the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, as well as the family collection Successió Miró and the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation in Mallorca, the show can be visited until Feb. 1, 2015. 

The extensive exhibition provides the opportunity to understand the symbolic language of Miro through a rich selection of artworks in different mediums including oil on canvas, sculpture, lithography and ceramics. Istanbullites will be able to witness the various interpretations of the energy the artist drew from Miro's distinctive interpretation of Mediterranean culture. 

Works and personal items belonging to Miro from the family collection are included alongside certain assemblage artworks, presented with all of their preparatory stages.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, SSM Director Dr. Nazan Ölçer said they had initiated talks with the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona three years ago.

“Our dream was to add the third link with this great Catalan master to the trilogy of Spain’s great masters, which we started with Pablo Picasso and continued with Salvador Dali. Now we are filled with the excitement of having fulfilled this dream," Ölçer said.

"Together with the foundation, we decided to prepare a selection focusing on the artist’s mature period, centering on women, birds and stars. These are themes that he never abandoned and that underline his versatility. To stress this versatility, we also borrowed works of art from the family collection in Mallorca and workshop materials from the Pilar and the Joan Miro Foundation in Mallorca,” she added.

“A series of documentaries will also be shown at the exhibition, giving viewers the chance to observe the artist’s life, inner world, his transformations, friends, anger and reaction to the political events in his country and in the world, thereby catching a glimpse of his secret world, which he guarded closely,” Ölçer also said.

What's more, many of the works included in the exhibition are appearing for the first time in Turkey. 

Also speaking at the opening, Sabancı Holding CEO Zafer Kurtul hailed a "new era" for Turkish museums. “Sabancı Holding has supported exhibitions by great masters ever since the ‘Picasso in Istanbul’ exhibition which ushered in a new era in the history of Turkish museums,” Kurtul said. 

“I believe that this exhibition will be received with the same warm interest witnessed by the previous ones, with long queues at the doors. Miro is the fourth great master whose works we have helped to bring to the Turkish public, the first three being Picasso, Rembrandt and Monet. Miro is an artist who has made a difference with his art, with his works. This exhibition will enable us to come to know and understand this great master, through his life as well as his work,” he added.