Son Boter. Joan Miró

“These photographs tell us that a stain can be the shadow cast by the sun sneaking through a door opening, the light filtering through the branches of a tree, or the remains of paint left on the floor by a painter. In this case the painter is Joan Miró, and the place where the photographs were taken is his atelier on the island of Majorca.

Rif Spahni’s camera has recorded the traces that Miró left on the walls and the floor of that studio. Like the stains left by a child, these traces separate impressions and shape the place where the world begins to appear. A place of vision.” Gustavo Martín Garzo, from the text in the book.

Son Boter, a typical rural Mallorcan house dating back to the 18th century, is the oldest of the Fundació’s buildings. It became Joan Miró’s second Mallorcan studio, purchased by the artist in 1959 with the prize money of the New York Guggenheim International Award, given to him for the creation of the Mur du soleil and Mur de la lune for the Paris UNESCO building.

Drawn by the creative force of Son Boter studio, in 2012 Rif Spahni started this project, Photographs, many of insignificant details and objects, but which in the eye of the photographer became instant pictures of past moments when, for a fleeting instant, we once again see Joan Miró working in his studio.

In 2018 he returned to the place to search again for the details, through the footprints and vestiges on the floor of the studio.