Miralda

born 1942 in Barcelona, Spain
lives and works in Barcelona and Miami, Florida, USA

Miralda has divided his career between Spain, France and the United States. He moved to Paris from Barcelona, but was conscripted back to Spain for compulsory military service for two years. Following his return to France in 1967, the theme for his first works was, not surprisingly, military: regiments of white toy soldiers marching in columns and onto copies of famous sculptures like the Venus de Milo. In the overheated political context of May 1968 Paris and the Vietnam War, these Soldats soldés (Soldiers on sale) were highly charged and provocative.

Up until 1971 Miralda, working in tandem with his wife Dorotheé Selz, was involved in carnivalesque events. Choosing 1 November – All Souls Day on the Christian calendar, also known as All Hallows or Hallowmas, which becomes Halloween – Miralda commemorated the departed with purple and black food (borscht, fish and rice). Invited to the 1971 Biennale of Paris, Miralda prepared an enormous banquet table with multicoloured piles of bread, rice, cauliflower and corn cobs served by masked figures dressed in primary colours.

His monumental project Honeymoon was constructed from 1986 to 1992 in celebration of the ‘marriage’ between the Statue of Liberty in New York and the statue of Christopher Columbus in Barcelona. There is a film that recounts the preparation of the bride’s trousseau (on a scale with the Statue of Liberty), and the ceremony itself in Las Vegas, the capital of American kitsch. It is the marriage of the contrasting symbols: conquest and freedom.

Read more about Miralda’s 1973 Kaldor project.

See also FoodCulturaMuseum.