The Art Aids Foundation commissions leading artists, to go on show in Barcelona

  Elmgreen and Dragset

Barcelona, Spain - The ArtAids Foundation has invited nine internationally acclaimed artists who don’t usually work on the subject of AIDS to create site-specific pieces for You Are Not Alone, an exhibition which will be held at the Fundació Joan Miró of Barcelona from 30 June to 16 September. The ArtAids foundation was set up by the Dutch writer and art collector Han Nefkens, owner of the H+F Collection to raise awareness on the HIV epidemic through art projects. “ArtAids is a unique institution in that it sponsors exhibitions that are geared towards a positive transformation of the public’s perception and understanding of the Aids crisis through something as subtle and complex as art. As an art museum, we can’t but wholeheartedly support constructive projects of such nature.” said Rosa Maria Malet, Director of the Fundació Joan Miró about ArtAids.

You Are Not Alone, curated by Hilde Teerlinck, the Belgium former artistic director of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion of Barcelona, features the innovative approach to the current status of the disease by a total of fourteen contemporary artists. The nine commissions include installations, photographs and sculptures by Elmgreen & Dragset, Deimantas Narkevicius, Latifa Echakhck, Danh Vo, Jorge Orta, Christodoulos Panayioto etc. alongside pieces from the ArtAids collection which comprises pieces by David Goldblat, Otto Berchem, and Juul Hondlus among many other international artists.

The exhibition will tour to MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Vigo) in Vigo, Galicia, where it will be on display from October 21, 2011 to late February, 2012.

New Miró Museum in Mont-Roig, Spain

  Photograph: Laurent Rebours/AP

Mont-roig del Camp – Spain: Last February, it has been announced that the Miró family has reached an agreement with the local administrations of the city of Mont-roig, located on the Golden Coast of Spain, to turn their local house into an active museum within a three-year timeframe. “The house of Mont-roig is a symbolic place for Joan Miró, because that is where he took the decision to become an artist at an early age and ran away from the career his parents wanted for him.” said Elena Juncosa, Project Coordinator. The agreement states that the Miró family will rent the property for a symbolic fee to the local authorities in order to not only exhibit objects Joan Miró left before he died, but also artworks which were made in Mont-roig or took inspiration from the city. 

“This agreement also marks the centenary of the artist’s first time in Mont-roig. Since 1911, he would come back every summer.” added Juncosa who currently works on an inaugural exhibition which will open on 3^rd June this year, for three months in the city. For the first time in Mont-roig, this show will feature 25 original sculptures lent both by the Miró Foundation in Barcelona, the museum of Mallorca and the Miró family. These entities are willing to take an active role in the future exhibitions of the Mont-roig museum. "We want it to be a living museum. The Barcelona Foundation as well as our family will lend original artworks, and curate seasonal exhibitions so that the visitor will always have something new to see.” declared Emilio Fernández Miró, grandson of the artist.

This year also coincides with a boom of Miró exhibitions around the world, starting with the Tate Modern’s retrospective which will be the first major London retrospective for nearly 50 years. It will then travel to the Fundació Miró in Barcelona and the National Gallery in Washington.

Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape
Tate Modern, London, April 14–September 11, 2011
Fundacío Joan Miró, Barcelona, October 14, 2011–March 25, 2012
National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 6–August 12, 2012