Now Ukraine

The “Mani-Festa” series, to which this work belongs, comprises ‘decisive images’ that refer to “contemporary interpretations of reality”, as Romà de la Calle put it. This is precisely one of the events that make Antoni Miró side angrily with the vanquished in the supportive terms set out by Isabel-Clara Simó, among others.

In April 2014, there were several marches in Moscow against the position taken by the United States and Europe regarding the crisis in Crimea and in Eastern Ukraine. A rise in international tensions led to the demonstration, which rejected NATO intervention in these conflicts.

One of the photos disseminated by the news agencies depicts a young man in the crowd, walking next to this and other placards. The people who accompanied him have been cut out of this reworking of the photo. The painter stresses the critical message towards the greed for more power captured in the poster and intensifies it. The predatory condition alluded to is questioned in two simple ways through: (1) a person and a placard; (2) two predominant colours — red and blue.

We clearly observe the picture’s ‘threatening potential’, alluded to by Romà de la Calle. The painter achieves this by following a strategy that focuses on the essentials. On the one hand, there is a clear chromatic tension between the two predominant colour masses — the red of the man’s clothing and the blue of the background. On the other hand, there is also an inverse relationship between the red-black balance in the human figure and the poster. The former has a counterpoint in the man’s hat, and the latter has some red brush strokes that balance the elements, which are mostly black.

There was undoubtedly an ideological motive for painting the work and an intention to “sediment major events and make them memorable” — something that Fernando Castro sees as one of the hallmarks of Miró’s works. Josep Sou considers that such an approach also enshrines the artist’s “commitment to people and their times”.

Santiago Pastor Vila