Antoni Miralda

Essais d'amélioration, 1978

Terrassa (Barcelona), 1942

Antoni Miralda’s first artistic incursions begin with the mandatory military service that, first through drawing, end up creating authentic interventions in the public space, with his white plastic Soldats Soldés. The artist will reside in Paris until 1971, when he leaves for New York, but not before having established a series of contacts with other Catalan artists such as Joan Rabascall and Jaume Xifra. Food and its color, with all the symbolic and social charge that surrounds it, become the nuclear element of his work, through actions carried out together with Dorothée Selz, first, and with the gourmet Montse Guillén, later, that will take the form of collective rituals and banquets. Miralda’s activity, thus, is based on ephemeral projects, which are activated thanks to the participation of people and volunteers that the artist himself recruits, to celebrate the playful and festive aspect of life. Among these, the Fest für Leda stands out, a ritual action carried out for Documenta VI in Kassel in 1977 —which had the support of the Vandrés gallery, managed by Fernando Vijande—, and of which the Fundació Suñol conserves the Leda piece. At the same time, the use of such a universal element as food allows him to break prejudices and relate different cultures, as he did with the Honeymoon Project which, spanning six years, recreated all the acts of a symbolic marriage between the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Columbus Monument in Barcelona. Since 2007, he has been involved in the FoodCultura project, an archive and platform for thinking about the relationship between gastronomy and cultural diversity.

Miralda is also an artist who has been present throughout the entire history of the Fundació Suñol. Already at the time of the inauguration of Josep Suñol’s residence in Les Escales, Miralda was in charge of designing, with the collaboration of Jaume Xifra, Antoni Muntadas and Jaume Sisa, the ceremonial act of June 10, 1976, called Situació-color . A few years later, in 1982, he prepared the opening party for Gallery 2. The reopening of the Fundació in this same space, in 2019, again included his participation, with the Cromomà gift.

The Fundació Suñol dedicated an individual exhibition to him, Camins encontrats II. Miralda. Works: 1977 and 2015, by Enric Franch, who delved into his career from the contrast of two pieces.