Antoni Miró (Alcoi, 1944), throughout his personal trajectory, has known how to combine a great versatility of initiatives, both in a direct creative mode -in his efficient dedication to several forms of aesthetic proposals- and untiringly in his attention to cultural development and promotion.

It is not easy to establish a chronology in the considerable conjunct of his artistic production, to assign to a certain period the utilization of a certain resource, technique or stylistic option, since, in fact, Antoni Miró -especially before deciding to follow the course of social realism- did not hesitate to experiment, in one medium or another, with whatever came to hand and aroused his interest.

In this sense, through the years of his progressive personal development -as restless autodidactic, apprentice and formed artist- it is not difficult to find unequal attempts both in abstract approach and stylistic spectrum, depending on the distinct artistic modes in which he found himself working. Subsequent knowledge and mastery have permitted him to work now with complete ease, no matter what his pictorial task- sculpture, mural, diverse graphic works, ceramics, collage or mail-art.

However, along with the above -mentioned experimental and investigative restlessness, directed at diverse aspects of aesthetic language and in different express live modes, it should also be noted- as a kind of common denominator maintained throughout his artistic itinerary- the strong talent for dedication and compromise with the surrounding reality and global pulse of daily existence that is shown and matured especially in the pictorial series produced in the last decades.

The extended group of artistic works gathered under the respective titles of -America Negra» (1972), «El Dólar» (1973-80), «Pinteu pintura» (1980-90), or «Vivace» (since 1991) -to name some of the perhaps more relevant and characteristic ones- are fully representative of how Antoni Miró sets his attention. He does so either through extrapolation of the opportune referential historical event or its reutilization -almost emblematic- as a strong symbolic image, thereby achieving eloquent contrasts. Or through the herse and effective intersection of strict plastic values with ones that really are existential, though always from a markedly social, cultural or ecological perspective.

The artistic task of Antoni Miró is much more radical in its own approach than other options that might be analogous or historically parallel -first as a scream of denunciation and liberation, then more surely as calm and incisive reflection based on his own pictorical activity. Thas is, a reflection on the fact itself’ of painting paint or on the grievous situation of the natural and human circumstance. However, he has adopted, in many of his singular proposals, a growing expressive gradation, under the protection of effective registers of humor, of opportune irony or even, if necessary, of merciless satire.

In fact, by means of the composite assemblies that, with great acuteness and ingenuity he adopts in his always carefully-achieved work, based chiefly in explicit codes and linguistic strategies found in the mass communication media, he manages to assure -from within and utilizing the same resources he criticizes- a restless cathartic effect on the viewer who certainly cannot limit him/herself to be merely an indifferent or neutral contemplator of the argued theme that is offered.

Recurrent examples of how he utilizes, with indiscutible effectiveness, the threatening character of visual effects, the plastic interventions of Antoni Miró are never missing an eloquent reflexive index. Because if it is evident -as has been insisted time and again- that his may be a «painting that is conscious-raising», it is not less certain that in his creative process he includes, at least equally, an outstanding degree of auto-reflection of the artistic work about itself, which leads to the growing «consciousness of painting».

Possibly protected by that incisive auto-referential withdrawal behind the pictorical fact, the diverse experiences, techniques, procedures and resources combine fully to better compose a particular plastic language- with it own personal stamp. So it does not end up being exclusively a «means» of ideological communication, but rather it forms a register of evident communication and aesthetic experience.

This is what happens, for instance, and certainly with uniqueness -it must be honestly recognized- in the already extense pictorical series «Vivace», where aesthetic and social functions are intimately articulated by means of a chain of Miró’s metaphorical games, around an emblematic and ecologic vehicle.

The bicycles of Antoni Miró overflow the horizon of our fantasy and know how to agglutinate, by themselves, cultural rereadings and winks of humor. In elegant contrast, they always foreground a natural panorama that unfailingly goads -hiding nothing, even with his careful and nastily amiable representation- our respective quota of individual responsibility, as we are confronted with the situation of our surrounding envinronment.

Again, then, we are faced with the rich, inexhaustible metaphor of the trip. But on this visual trip, to which the unforgettable bicycles of Antoni Miró sagely invite us, we undoubtedly become conscious that the circumstances of existence are not innocent. Neither are our appealing looks innocent nor our wishes, nor our words, nor our aesthetic experience as we behold his paintings.

Nature itself -it becomes more clear all the time- has been unavoidably disguised as history and culture. Perhaps, it may be precisely that those two wheels of the bicycles of Antoni Miró, screeching with obstinate insistence, know at the same time how to imprison the involved silence of our look.

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