Like every Saturday, the last visitors of the day could use their taquillas to leave the Fundación Miró shortly before the afternoon, when the museum closed. Then others arrived at this untimely hour, under the surprised gaze of those who paraded them. Without really knowing what was going to happen, the arrivals arrived with great expectations: to witness the reincarnation of one of the most exciting events that this cultural center has known, at the top of the Montjuïc mountain, during its fifty years. The call was Reincarnation V: Eat. Xavier Olivé and Joan Brossa, performed by Laia Fabre and Liminal. Few data, a few photos in white and black and, among those present, the only testimony from 1982, the same Xavier Olivé.
Alongside the artist, a corridor formed in the hall around Laia Fabre, a multidisciplinary artist based in Vienna, and Liminal, the duo formed by Valentina Córdoba and Jana Soler, who present themselves as explorers of cultural imaginations and creators of stories through food. Fundación Miró was responsible for representing the show that took place in June 43 years ago in different spaces of the center, a traveling stage between food and spectacle. At that time, Tortell Poltrona participated, who had his first pinitos with Circ Cric; Carles Santos on piano with the voice of Pilar Zamora and Ángel Pavlovsky with one of his spectacular dresses.
A few minutes later, the organizers took the group away, under the pretext that they had managed to bring a swan to the event. A titanic effort today, they commented, compared to the ease with which it was necessary to capture four decades ago two of these birds from Lake Puigcerdà, which accompanied four dancers in the north courtyard, to the music of Chaikovski and the choreography of Maite Salado. “Today it is much more complicated,” said Xavier Olivé, who said that the scene was a thank you from the president of the Patronage, Oriol Bohigas, to the collaborators of the foundation, which happened to be in his prolegómenos. “La Miró is a marvel, he does a lot of things here,” he recalled of the possibilities of the Sert building.
After that moment, I wasn’t surprised that the beast was actually a large piece of art with a white screen and supported by a few wooden sticks. At this point, you’d have to be wrong to expect a real animal. But we all welcomed the reincarnation of the swan with joy, immersing ourselves in a shared experience, carrying small lamps and candles that illuminated the scene. Late at night, the few people walking around the Fundación Miró were surprised. A group of four French people joined in the process in the garden, but they quickly abandoned it when they realized they weren’t there with them.
At the top of the sky, the swan released its feathers, which became a large white blanket that stretched around the walls. There, we were offered red packets with the first starters: pan, tomatoes, queso, grapes… Luego passed us plates of potato tortillas and poured porridge. “Sometimes when I ate Brossa, it felt like a sweater in a shoe,” said Xavier Olivé, placing the artist’s evil child on the table, while Laia Fabre remembered how that beginning really happened when he burst Tortell Poltrona with his payasadas. Among those who entered, there were photos that reminded him.
Later, the swan, lighter in clothing, led the group to the interior patio, chaired by an olive. On a buffet-style table, large, buzzing dishes were arranged, accompanied by rotating platters of Carn d’Olla and vegetables. A shield with large capitals (like those of Brossa) to warm the body on a peaceful December night. Maybe at that time I was accompanied by a lot of piano, like Carles Santos, and a voice, like Pilar Zamora. But the disc accumulates when it wants to be replaced and, surely for this reason, they have decided not to respond to the artists.
At the start of the 2020s it was circus celebration, artistic rebellion and transvestite glamour, the scene of 2025 involves tortilla de patatas, scudella and carn d’olla, merengue and tiramisú. These two afternoons put the crane on the track, with a post in the most ceremonial scene in which the swan ended up transforming into a large tarta, imitating that peluca meringue that Lucia Pavlovski a Madame Pompadour and that nadie dudó in a pacifier. No incident was recorded, but Saturday’s repositioning was predictable: a guest with soggy pies. I can’t wait to fall into the pool on the north patio, which has the best views of Barcelona and, by the way, is very deep. The dance closes this session of the Reincarnations cycle, which will continue with the Honeymoon Project by Antoni Miralda, to continue celebrating Miró’s 50th anniversary until June.
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