Idea and matter in Joan Miró. A brief semiotics of excrement

Abstract

In this brief essay, I offer some reflections on Joan Miró in accordance with the guiding principle of “excrement” indicated by the title. In this regard, my starting point is not a work or a set of works—which I will comment on in any case—but rather a few observations made by the artist about his creative method: first, following his collaboration with the theater group La Claca (1974) and then in a dialogue with G. Raillard (1977). In one of these observations, which I will transcribe, Miró alludes more directly than in others to the act of defecation that he introduces into art. In relation to this question indicated by the title, excrement will be the guiding thread of the pages that follow. In summary, with a few reflections that will give this writing a more general scope—at least I hope so—the three parts that compose it distribute the argument as follows: first, some considerations about myth and mystification—of art, of the artist—then a brief methodological exposition of a general nature, and finally an overview to explain and interpret the excremental in Miró's work and personality, considering three different moments that I have called grotesque shit, plastic shit, and exclamatory or verbal shit.