The Fundació Joan Miró and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) signed a framework agreement in October 2020 to work together to pursue initiatives to raise awareness and an increased appreciation of the life and work of Joan Miró among the academic community as part of the cultural programme of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and its educational and scientific mission.

The synergies generated between the foundation and the university are structured into three main ambits that will serve to establish a space for creative dialogue shared by the two institutions: the creation of the Fundació Joan Miró - UPF Chair of Contemporary Art, the loan of works from the foundation’s collection and the loan of books and similar material from the foundation’s Library.

The signing of the framework partnership agreement between the Fundació Joan Miró and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra on 28 October 2020.

The framework agreement enables specialists at the Fundació Joan Miró and academics at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra to work jointly to develop projects to share and combine their knowledge. The agreement also promotes the study of contemporary art and Miró’s work, while at the same time raising students’ awareness of the museum’s holdings.

Fundació Joan Miró - UPF Chair of Contemporary Art 

The founding of the Fundació Joan Miró - UPF Chair of Contemporary Art is an ideal way to formalise this broad and lasting specialist partnership between the university and the foundation. The professor who holds the chair will serve as a bridge between the two institutions and will determine the strategic focus in accordance with a specific collaboration agreement to be signed in the near future.

Loan of works

Thanks to the framework agreement, the foundation has temporarily loaned two acrylics on paper that Miró created in 1968 (FJM 4703 and FJM 4702), giving the university community an initial sample of the foundation’s collection. These two works are displayed in the Espai Tàpies in the university’s Ciutadella campus and are part of the UPF Art Track, an itinerary that takes in the university’s artistic and cultural heritage that also includes artists such as Antoni Tàpies, Susana Solano and Alfonso Alzamora.

Untitled, 1968, Joan Miró. Acrylic on paper

Bibliographical holdings

The third initiative covered by this partnership is the ten-year loan to the Universitat Pompeu Fabra of some of the holdings of books and other documents on art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries held by the Fundació Joan Miró Library, thereby expanding the university’s General Library and adding in particular to its stocks on contemporary art. This loan encompasses a total of 11,327 publications from the foundation’s Jacques Dupin Library that focus on Joan Miró, the history and architecture of the foundation, and art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These publications are listed in the catalogue of the university’s Library and are available for consultation.

Future projects

In keeping with the objectives of the framework agreement between the Fundació Joan Miró and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, the two institutions will be promoting new initiatives and artistic and research projects over the course of 2022 with the aim of continuing to expand the academic and cultural horizons of the students at the university and of enlarging the audiences and reach of the foundation.