'[...] Another painter whose compositions with unconventional materials made a statement at the fair—you may have heard of him—is Joan Miró. London- and New York-based gallery Luxembourg + Co is showing a little-known body of work the Surrealist made as the Spanish Civil War began in the summer of 1936, applying oil, sand and tar directly onto rough Masonite boards. The works are paired with secretly elaborate new sculptures of cans by Peter Fischli—though they resemble ceramics, their materials include seemingly everything but, from newspaper and construction paper to gouache, enamel paint and champagne chalk.
The Mirós are installed on easels throughout the gallery’s stand in order to highlight their sculptural qualities, according to gallery partner Alma Luxembourg. “They’re among his most radical works, if not the most radical,” she says. “It feels to me as though he really pushed his practice to the edge of a precipice with these works, and then came back.”'