Chillida Leku opens to the public "Miró a Zabalaga", an exhibition conceived as a tribute to the Catalan artist

Miró a Zabalaga, which can be visited from May 21 to November 1, 2022, is an exhibition conceived as a tribute to the Catalan artist that highlights the connections between the two artists and celebrates the friendship of the Catalan artist with Eduardo Chillida.

The exhibition, which starts in the open air in the museum's camp with the large-format sculptures Oiseau solaire (Solar Bird) and Femme (Woman), is mainly on the first floor of the Zabalaga hamlet with a selection of works dated between 1946 and 1981. Among the selected works is also a tapestry made between 1989 and 1991 by Josep Royo from a lithograph by the Catalan artist.

"Being here with Miró is great for the opportunity to celebrate a visit to Chillida's house, with the impatience of receiving someone long-awaited," says Estela Solana, head of exhibitions at Chillida Leku. "The pieces that make up Miró in Zabalaga convey a simple but also physical idea, it is the conjunction of a great work by Chillida with the work of Miró".

The sculptures, drawings and engravings that make up the exhibition cover the artist's usual themes and with them, color enters the farmhouse for the first time intensely, a construction renovated by the sculptor to house his work. The works are related to each other and are grouped by rooms with the idea of forming a composition. "Gathering Miró's corpus in the museum with works by Eduardo Chillida creates an exceptional context to give rise to an enriching dialogue between both artists, an opportunity to approach it from different points of view", emphasizes Mireia Massagué, director of Chillida Leku, who emphasizes that "the works are related to each other but do not touch, do not share the same pedestal but are presented individually."

This monographic proposal will run in parallel and independently of Chillida's permanent exhibition, but will highlight the multiple points of connection and convergence between the two artists. “Miró has a special power to make his bends tend to be convex. And since I am rather concave… ”, stated Eduardo Chillida in 1984 regarding this dialogue.

Miró's imaginary characters, the product of a free and inexhaustible mind, populate the first floor of the Zabalaga farmhouse and find their accommodation so that each room could, in a sense, be enjoyed as a whole. In each space there are a series of objects that create different atmospheres such as the field or the garden, in direct dialogue also with the outside of the museum.