For the first time in over 25 years the grotesque characters designed in 1978 by the surrealist painter Joan Miró (1893–1983) reappear in a new production for Tate Modern, as part of UBS Openings: The Long Weekend.
These puppets were originally designed for the show Mori el Merma, first performed in 1978, which emerged out of a collaboration between Miró and La Claca, an experimental theatre troupe from Barcelona, headed by Joan Baixas.
Mori el Merma roughly translates as ‘Death to the Bogeyman’, and the bogeyman is based on Alfred Jarry’s character Ubu, from his play Ubu Roi.
When it was first performed, the memory of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco was still fresh, and the performance alluded to his death in 1975.
In this new production, Merma Neverdies, Joan Baixas evokes the critical spirit of Mori el Merma and recovers Miró’s original idea to make a street parade in the Catalonian tradition. Baixas's work insists on the idea of the absurdity of power, the abuses of the tyrant and the impertinences of dictators, themes which are ever present and must be critised and denounced.
Tate is collaborating with Joan Baixas and David Gothard, who worked with Miró and brought Mori el Merma to Riverside studios in 1980.
Joan Baixas is a dramatist, director and painter, renowned for his innovative puppetry and theatre projects, painting performances and video installations, and collaborations with great artists including Matta, Saura and Miró.
The puppets are replicas made under supervision and control of the Succesió Miró SL and range from giants with the heads of monsters, grotesque torsos and six-foot-long arms to creatures that whisper and squeal as if Miró's free-form shapes had to leapt to life.
Throughout the day, the film Mori El Merma (1978) by Francesc Català-Roca is shown in the Starr Auditorium. This unique documentary offers a short extract of the original performance and shows Joan Miró at work in his studio creating the costumes and props for the performance Mori El Merma, premiered in the Liceu in Barcelona on 7 June 1978.
Starr Auditorium
10.00–18.00
Free, no bookings taken
Three majors works by Joan Miró – Painting (1927), A Star Caresses the Breast of a Negress (Painting Poem) (1938) and Women and Bird in the Moonlight (1949) – are included in the central hub of the Poetry and Dream wing of Tate Modern's the new Collection displays.
