Joan Miró once said "I feel the need of attaining the maximum of intensity with the minimum of means." The Denver Art Museum exhibition team wanted to achieve something similar with Joan Miró: Instinct & Imagination—to create a gallery space that allows the Spanish artist's paintings and sculptures to have maximum impact.
The exhibition opens March 22 in the Gallagher Family Gallery where the recent Matisse and Friends exhibition was on view. Joan Miró was the first time the gallery was so drastically transformed since the Hamilton Building opened in 2006, including removing an entire wall.
David Griesheimer, manager of exhibition production, said it took a demolition crew two days to cut the steel and drywall into large chunks and remove it from the building. While just about every exhibition has a different wall configuration, Griesheimer said he thinks visitors may notice a difference in the gallery. "For Matisse and Friends [a much smaller show] we only used half the gallery," he said. "With Miró, visitors may not even realize they’re in the same gallery."
See the slide show below for a few pictures of the gallery as it's being transformed and made ready for Miró's imaginative, engaging, and colorful works.
This exhibition travels to the DAM from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.