INTRODUCTION

The puppets in this performance were originally designed for the theatre piece Mori el Merma, first performed in 1978. The production was a collaboration between the artist Joan 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’ anti-hero is based on the French writer Alfred Jarry’s character ‘Père Ubu’, from his absurdist play that made a grotesque parody of authority and the abuses of power, Ubu Roi (1896). Miró had been fascinated by the figure of Ubu Roi for many years, creating a series of lithographs to illustrate the play in 1966, and going on to co-create this theatre piece towards the end of his life. When Mori el Merma was first performed in Barcelona, the memory of Spain’s dictatorship under Francisco Franco was still fresh, and the performance alluded to his death in 1975.

In this new production, Merma Never Dies, Joan Baixas evokes the critical spirit of Mori el Merma and recovers Miró’s original desire to make the piece into a street parade in the Catalonian tradition. Baixas's promenade performance which began in the north landscape of Tate Modern and proceeds into the Turbine Hall makes visible the continuing relevance of those ideas regarding the absurdity of power, the abuses of the tyrant and the impertinences of dictators today.

joanbaixas.com

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.

Part of UBS Openings: The Long Weekend - Surrealist Saturday

See Collection Display: Poetry and Dream

  Music & Performance