ANTONI
TAPIES AT TIMOTHY TAYLOR, LONDON
January 19, 2023 – March
4, 2023
Timothy
Taylor is delighted to present a solo exhibition of paintings and works on
paper by Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012) in honour of the late Catalan artist’s 100th
birthday. The works, dating from 1989 to 2008, express spiritual decay and
rebirth in blackened paintings that reveal the eternal. The exhibition is
curated by Natasha Hébert, the artist’s daughter-in-law.
Stony canvases like thousand-year-old mountains, ragged graffiti, and archaic
symbols evoking the mysterious marks of a lost ancient tribe establish Tàpies’s
ferocious contributions to post-war abstraction. Prefiguring the work of Arte
Povera by decades, Tàpies found meaning in the humblest grains of sand, ‘the
salt of the earth’, in rough-hewn paintings that illuminate the origins of life
and death in a time in which religion had lost its resonance and violence
cruelly divided the European continent. Tàpies’s paintings speak poignantly to
our own uneasy present under a splintered global order, and remain a powerful
influence on later artists who sought to embody the spiritual emptiness
unleashed by the post-war period, such as Jannis Kounellis, Anselm Kiefer, and
Julian Schnabel.
The late
works in this exhibition sees Tàpies return to the essential language of
crosses, triangles, open books and wall-like canvases that forged his career in
the mid 1950s, after a brief period as a Surrealist with a mutually influential
friendship with Joan Miro. Granular materials such as mud and sand refer not
only to knowledge erased by history or not fully understood, but also Tàpies
passionate belief in the working class: The oppression of the Catalan people
under Franco simmers beneath the surface. In Ona- Mar (2006), an etched
silkscreen resembles a newspaper scribbled with codes, suggesting a world of
hidden protest – repressed, clandestine, but full of life.
Borders and
closed-off spaces signal the horizon of heaven and earth, the limits to our
knowledge: In Matriu (1991), the cross symbol submerges a white canvas in
graffiti spray-like black paint; the cross also appears in Quatre Parts (2008),
in which black and gold squares divide the canvas into four parts. In a rare
insight into his belief in the sacred image, he wrote: ‘ A painting is a door
that leads to another door. Art, no matter how excellent, will always be just
one more manifestation of maya, of the deception at the core of everything. And
the truth we seek will never be found in a painting, but will only appear
behind the last door that the observer learns to open with his own strength.’
The eternal,
the artist hints, lies in a blade of grass or speck of earth, more infinite
than a human life. But the greatest mysteries in his work can only be
apprehended indistinctly, from a distance, with a power that lies in the heart
of the observer.
https://www.timothytaylor.com/viewing-rooms/antoni-tapies/
You may reach
the news of Antoni Tapies to click below links.
https://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2014/11/painter-antoni-tapies.html
https://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2013/03/antoni-tapies-s-exhibition-at-timothy.html
RECORDANT,
1999
Paint and Assemblage on Wood
Dimensions: 76 3/4 × 102 3/8 in. / 195 × 260 cm
(T0013714)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
LLIBRE OBERT,
1989
Paint and Varnish on Canvas
Dimensions: 35 × 45 5/8 in. / 89 × 116 cm
(T0013712)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
DUES URPES,
1989
Mixed Media on Paper
Dimensions: 47 1/4 × 31 1/2 in. / 120 × 80 cm
(T0013709)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
MANTA NUADA,
2008
Paint and Collage on Canvas
Dimensions: 86 5/8 × 106 1/4 × 9 1/2 in. / 220 × 270 × 24 cm
(T0013713)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
The cross is a frequent symbol for Tàpies, a former Catholic who used the symbol beyond its customary religious meaning. It appears as a cross, a gesture and a T, both a signature and an homage to his wife Teresa. Tàpies was fascinated by the eternal, and used the cross as a way to suggest two opposing directions: vertical and horizontal, a plus sign that unites two entities or stands isolated between the voids.
MOCADOR
BLANC, 2008
Mixed Media on Wood
Dimensions: 31 7/8 × 39 3/8 in. / 81 × 100 cm
(T0013715)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
MA I
PAISATGE, 2000
Paint and Pencil on Paper
Dimensions: 29 × 40 1/8 in. / 73.5 × 102 cm
(T0013742)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
QUATRE PARTS,
2008
Mixed Media on Canvas
Dimensions: 63 3/4 × 102 3/8 in. / 162 × 260 cm
(T0013716)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
GRAFFITI
SOBRE CIMENT, 1990
Etching and Silkscreen Print in Several Inks (Black, Grey, White and Cement)
Dimensions: 54 7/8 × 27 1/8 in. / 139.5 × 69 cm
(TE0013710)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
URPA, 2000
Aquatint Engraving in Various Inks and Embossed Roller
Dimensions: 20 1/2 × 18 7/8 in. / 52 × 48 cm
(TE0013743)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
TRESPEUS,
1990
Etching, Carborundum, Mixed Media and Collage
Dimensions: 54 3/8 × 27 3/8 in. / 138 × 69.5 cm
(TE0013707)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
ONA-MAR, 2006
Monotype of Grasscloth, Etching, Silkscreen With Paper Collage
Dimensions: 20 1/2 × 18 7/8 in. / 52 × 48 cm
(TE0013708)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
TRIANGLE
SOBRE MATERIA, 1999
Mixed Media on Wood
Dimensions: 15 × 18 1/8 in. / 38 × 46 cm
(T0013741)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
DUES BOQUES,
1991
Paint on Paper
Dimensions: 47 1/4 × 31 3/4 in. 120 × 80.5 cm
(T009663)
© Respective
Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
MATRIU, 1991
Paint and Pencil on Paper
Dimensions: 30 7/8 × 41 3/4 in. / 78.5 × 106 cm
(T0013740)
©
Respective Artists & Timothy Taylor Gallery
PAINTER ANTONI TAPIES
Antoni Tàpies was born in Barcelona in 1923 into a
cultured, middle-class, Catalan nationalist family who, since the 19th century,
had been part of a publishing and book-selling tradition that awoke in him an
early love of books and reading.
That inclination was strengthened over a long
convalescence from a lung disease, during which he began his first experiments
with art. He spent an increasing amount of time on drawing and painting and
ended up abandoning his law studies to devote himself to them fully. By the
forties he was already exhibiting his works, which were outstanding on the art
scene of the time.
Tàpies shared a general sensibility which affected
artists on both sides of the Atlantic after the Second World War and the
dropping of the atomic bomb, and soon expressed an interest in matter - earth,
dust, atoms and particles - which took the shape of the use of materials
foreign to academic artistic expression and experiments with new techniques.
The matter paintings make up a substantial part of his work and are a project
he is still engaged in today. He believes that the notion of matter must also
be understood from the point of view of Mediaeval mysticism as magic, mimesis
and alchemy. That is how we must see his wish for his works to have the power
to transform our inner selves.
In the fifties and sixties Tàpies created a series of
images, usually taken from his immediate environment, which would appear in the
different stages of his evolution. Often, as well as being represented in
different ways, a single image will have a series of differentiated meanings
superimposed on one another. His message focuses on the revaluation of what is
regarded as low, repulsive material.
Moreover, Tàpies’ work has always absorbed the
political and social events of the time. In the late sixties and early
seventies his political commitment in opposition to the dictatorship deepened
and the works from that period have a marked character of denunciation and
protest. Coinciding with the flowering of arte povera in
Europe and post-minimalism in the United States, he worked more with objects,
not showing them as they are but stamping them with his own seal and
incorporating them into his language. In the early eighties, once democracy had
returned to Spain, his interest in canvas as a support took on renewed
strength. At that time he produced works with foam rubber or the spray
technique, he used varnishes and created objects and sculptures in refractory
clay or bronze, while remaining active in the field of graphic art. In the
later years of the decade he seems to have a heightened interest in Eastern
culture, a concern which had been incubating since the post-war years and which
increasingly became a fundamental philosophical influence on his work because
of its emphasis on what is material, the identity between man and nature and a
rejection of the dualism of our society. He was also drawn by a new generation
of scientists, who helped to provide a vision of the universe which understands
matter as a whole in constant change and formation.
The works of the last years are, most of all, a
reflection on pain - both physical and spiritual - understood as an integral
part of life. Influenced by Buddhist thought, Tàpies believes that a better
knowledge of pain allows us to soften its effects and therefore improve our
quality of life. The passage of time, which has always been a constant in his
work, now takes on fresh nuances when lived as a personal experience which
brings greater self-knowledge and a clearer understanding of the world around him.
In recent years he has consolidated an artistic language which visually conveys
both his conception of art and certain philosophical concerns which have been
renewed over the years. His artistic practice is still open to the brutality of
the present while offering a form which, despite its ductility, remains
faithful to its origins. And so the works of the last few years are not only
fully contemporary, they are also a record of his own past.
Alongside his production of pictures and objects,
since 1947 Tàpies has been active in the field of graphic work. He has produced
a large number of collector’s books and dossiers in close association with
poets and writers such as Alberti, Bonnefoy, Du Bouchet, Brodsky, Brossa,
Daive, Dupin, Foix, Frémon, Gimferrer, Guillén, Jabès, Mestres Quadreny,
Mitscherlich, Paz, Saramago, Takiguchi, Ullán, Valente and Zambrano.
Moreover, he has written essays which have been
collected in a series of publications, some translated into different
languages: La pràctica de l’art (1970), L’art contra l’estètica,
(1974), Memòria personal (1978), La realitat com a
art (1982), Per un art modern
i progressista (1985), Valor de l’art (1993) and L’art i
els seus llocs (1999)
http://www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?rubrique73
You may visit my latest news about Antoni Tapies
general news, Antoni
Tapies’s exhibition of Against Tapies at Tapies Foundation and
Antoni Tapies at Timothy Taylor Gallery to click below links.
https://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2014/11/painter-antoni-tapies.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2013/03/antoni-tapies-s-exhibition-at-timothy.html
http://mymagicalattic.blogspot.com/2013/03/exhibition-of-antoni-tapies-at-tapies.html
ANTONI TAPIES 1923-1943
1923
Born in Barcelona on the 13 December, son of Josep Tàpies Mestres and Maria
Puig Guerra. During his early childhood, Tàpies lived in a cultural and social
environment marked to a considerable extent by his father’s friendship with
leading figures in Catalan public life and in the Catalanist republicanism of
the time and by the intense civic and political activity of his maternal
grandfather.
1926-1933
Primary schooling in various Barcelona schools (Sisters of Loreto School,
German School and Colegio Balmes de las Escuelas Pías).
1934
Begins secondary school. First contact with contemporary art by way of various
Catalan publications and, most importantly, the special Christmas issue of the
magazine D’ací i d’allà, edited by Josep Lluís Sert and Joan Prats,
with texts by Zervos, Foix and Gasch, among others, and reproductions of works
by Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger, Mondrian, Brancusi, Kandinsky, Duchamp, Arp,
Miró, etc.
1936-1939
During the Spanish Civil War he continues his studies at the Liceu Pràctic in
Barcelona and for a few months is a frequent visitor to the government offices
of the Generalitat de Catalunya, where his father works as a legal advisor.
Takes up drawing and painting, self-taught. The outcome of the war – defeat of
the legitimate democratic government of the Second Republic and beginning of
the Franco dictatorship – is to make a profound impression on many aspects of
his life and artistic career.
1940
His schooling – first at the Instituto Menéndez y Pelayo and then at the
Escuelas Pías once again – is frequently interrupted on account of his delicate
health.
1942-1943
Lung disease and lengthy convalescence in Puig d’Olena sanatorium and
subsequently in Puigcerdà and La Garriga. Draws and makes copies of Van Gogh
and Picasso. He is interested in the history of philosophy. Reads Thomas Mann,
Nietzsche, Spengler, Ibsen, Stendhal, Proust, Gide, etc. Develops a taste for
Romantic music, especially Wagner and Brahms, and for the aesthetic ideology of
Romanticism and German post-Romanticism in general.
ANTONI TAPIES 1970-1973
1970
Attends a clandestine assembly in the monastery of Montserrat, near Barcelona,
to protest against the so-called ‘Burgos Trial’ in which a military court is
judging opponents of the Franco dictatorship. Throughout the year he
intensifies his production of object-sculptures and his experience in the field
of assemblage. In a similar vein he produces the mural Gran esquinçall for
the new theatre in Sankt Gall, Switzerland. Publication of La pràctica
de l’art, a compilation of his writings and statements. Alexandre Cirici
publishes Tàpies, testimoni del silenci. Solo exhibitions in New
York, Baden-Baden, Stockholm, Barcelona and Milan.
1971
Produces the suite of drawings and collages Cartes per a la Teresa,
subsequently published in book form in 1974. He presents his recent assemblages
and object-sculptures, produced between 1968 and 1970, at the Galerie Maeght in
Zurich. Collaborates with André du Bouchet on the collector’s book Air,
with fourteen lithographs and etchings. Sebastià Gasch publishes the
monograph Tàpies. The Rome gallery Il Collezionista d’Arte
Contemporanea presents the retrospective exhibition Antoni Tàpies.
Opere 1946-1970. Solo exhibitions in Cologne, London, Balstahl, Palma de
Majorca, Malmö and Barcelona.
1972
He is awarded the Rubens Prize in Siegen, Germany, coinciding with a
retrospective exhibition of his work there (Städtische Galerie im Haus Seel).
Joan Miró appoints him a member of the board of the foundation he has just
created. Attends the opening of the exhibition Tàpies. Objets et grands
formats (Galerie Maeght, Paris). Vera Linhartova publishes the
monograph Tàpies. He takes part, with John Cage and Bob Thompson,
in the exhibition Concept and Content (Martha Jackson Gallery,
New York).
1973
In Paris again for the opening of his retrospective at the Musée d’art moderne
de la Ville de Paris, the show subsequently travels to Geneva (Musée Rath) and
Charleroi (Palais des Beaux-Arts). Intensifies his activity as an essayist,
publishing a number of texts during the year in various periodicals. Produces a
series of lithographs for the book La clau del foc, with a foreword
and a selection of texts by Pere Gimferrer. He also creates the first projects
for the collector’s book Llull-Tàpies, not published until 1985
and, together with other artists, contributes to the book in homage to Joan
Miró, L’Émerveillé merveilleux. Mariuccia Galfetti publishes Tàpies.
Obra gráfica 1947-1972. Solo exhibitions in Barcelona, Los Angeles,
Seville, Bonn and Madrid.
ANTONI TAPIES 1983-1985
1983
Unveiling in Barcelona of the artist’s monumental sculpture in homage to
Picasso. Designs the paving of the Plaça de Catalunya in Sant Boi de Llobregat
(Barcelona), assisted by J. Gardy Artigas. Awarded the Gold Medal of the
Generalitat de Catalunya. Appointed Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
by the French government. Produces posters for the World Committee of Artists
against Apartheid as a contribution to the struggle against racial
discrimination around the world, for the Comitè Català d’Acció per la Pau i el
Desarmament and to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Salvador
Allende. Attends the opening of his exhibition at the Abbaye de Sénanque
(Gordes, France). The Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona presents an anthological
exhibition of his posters, books and record covers. Solo exhibitions in Hannover,
Zurich, Paris and Barcelona.
1984
He attends the opening of his exhibition of ceramic sculptures produced between
1981 and 1983 in Zurich (Galerie Maeght Lelong). Travels to San Sebastián for
his anthological exhibition at the Museo Municipal de San Telmo. The United
Nations Association in Spain awards him the Peace Prize and the Rembrandt Prize
from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Stiftung in Basle. Publication of the
collector’s book L’estació, with a text by J.V. Foix and engravings
by Tàpies. Collaborates with Edmond Jabès on the book Dans la double
dépendance du dit. Victòria Combalia publishes the monograph Tàpies.
The Fundació Antoni Tàpies is constituted in Barcelona, at the artist’s own
initiative. Solo exhibitions in West Berlin, Paris, Cologne, Madrid, Stockholm,
Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Frankfurt.
1985
Publishes Per un art modern i progressista, a fourth collection of
writings and statements. Travels to Milan on the occasion of his retrospective
exhibition organised by the City Council at the Palazzo Reale and
simultaneously four Milan galleries exhibit the artist’s recent works. In
Brussels he attends the opening of a new anthological exhibition of his work
(Musée d’art moderne), as part of Europalia 85. The French government awards
him the Prix National de Peinture, and he is appointed member of Stockholm’s
Kungliga Akadamien för de Fria Konsterna. He is also awarded the Internationale
Triennale für farbige Originalgrafik Prize in Grenchen, Switzerland. Publication
of Llull-Tàpies (project begun in 1973), with engravings by
the artist, Pere Gimferrer’s selection of texts by Ramon Llull and an epilogue
by Miquel Batllori. Solo exhibitions in Barcelona, San Francisco, Madrid,
Milan, Düsseldorf, Helsinki, Knokke-le-Zoute, Alcoi, Albacete and Paris.
1993
He travels to New York for the opening of his solo exhibition at the Pace
Wildenstein Gallery. In June he attends the opening of the Biennale di Venezia,
XLV Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, and presents his work Rinzen –
winner of the Leone d’Oro – at the Spanish Pavilion. In Frankfurt, the Schirn
Kunsthalle presents a retrospective exhibition of his work. Publication
of Valor de l’art, a fifth collection of his writings. UNESCO awards
him the Picasso Medal. The Fundació Antoni Tàpies presents the exhibition Tàpies.
Celebració de la mel in Barcelona. Publication in Sankt Gall of the
book Brodsky/Tàpies, with texts by Joseph Brodsky and lithographs
by Tàpies. Takes part in the exhibition Manifeste. Une histoire
parallèle. 1960-1990 (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris). Solo
exhibitions in Leipzig, Madrid, Caracas, Narbonne, Vaduz, Zaragoza, Girona,
Liechtenstein and Lund.
1994
Travels to Stockholm for the opening of his retrospective exhibition at the
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde. Presentation of a selection of his recent work done
in Montseny during the summer in London (Waddington Galleries). The Palacio de
Sástago in Zaragoza hosts the exhibition Antoni Tàpies. Obra gráfica
1947-1990. He is invested doctor honoris causa by Universitat Rovira i
Virgili in Tarragona and honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy,
Edinburgh. He receives the Herbert-Boeckl-Preis awarded by the Rupertinum
Museum in Salzburg. He also receives the European Grand Prix for Graphic Work
at the Graphic Arts Biennial in Slovenia, and the Académie des Beaux-Arts of
the Institut de France chooses Tàpies to occupy one of the fifteen places
reserved for foreign associates. Travels to Paris to attend the opening of his
retrospective exhibition at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume. Together
with a hundred other artists and intellectuals he signs the manifesto promoted
by the Coordinadora d’Entitats Cíviques to demand a stop to the environmental
degradation of Montseny. Publication of the monographs Tàpies. Objetos
del tiempo, by Gloria Moure, and Tàpies, by Démosthènes
Davvetas. Solo exhibitions in Paris, Cologne, Hannover, Essen, Barcelona and
Salzburg.
ANTONI TAPIES 2004-2006
2004
The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) presents the exhibition Antoni
Tàpies. Retrospectiva, for which the book Tàpies en perspectiva is
published and which subsequently travels to Valladolid (Patio Herreriano) and
Mexico (Museo de Arte de Zapopán). The bibliophile book Cranc-cranc,
which Tàpies has produced, together with the composer Josep Maria Mestres
Quadreny, is published. The Fundación General of the Universidad Complutense de
Madrid commissions him to design the poster for the summer courses of El Escorial.
He attends the presentation of the documentary T de Tàpies,
directed by Carolina Tubau and produced by Televisió de Catalunya. The
Fundación Marcelino Botín in Santander presentes the exhibition Antoni
Tàpies. Una arquitectura de lo visible. In Madrid he attends the opening of
the exhibition Tàpies. Tierras (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte
Reina Sofía). Other solo exhibitions in Rio de Janeiro (Centro Cultural Banco
do Brasil) and Barcelona (Galeria Toni Tàpies).
2005
San Sebastian and Barcelona present a joint work by Tàpies and José Saramago
produced to support Elkarri, a social movement which advocates a model of peace
and dialogue to resolve the Basque conflict. He attends a recital by the
flamenco singer Manuel Cuevas to mark the tribute paid to him by the Festival
Internacional del Cante de la Minas (La Unión, Murcia). The work entitled 7
de novembre (1971) has been donated to the Catalan Parliament to mark
the twenty-fifth anniversary of its reestablishment, and a commemorative
serigraph is being carried out. Retrospective exhibition at the Hara Museum in
Tokyo; the exhibition will later travel to Singapore (Singapore Art Museum).
Tàpies was awarded the Lissone Prize for his entire career. He produces the
commemorative poster for the celebration of the 15th birthday of the Fundació
Antoni Tàpies. New solo exhibitions at the Waddington Galleries in London and
the Galerie Lelong in Zurich.
2006
The eight volume of the artist’s complete works is presented at a public event
at the Barcelona Athenaeum in the middle of June. In November, three
exhibitions – held almost simultaneously at the Galerie Lelong (Paris), the
Galería Soledad Lorenzo (Madrid) and the Galeria Toni Tàpies (Barcelona) – show
the painter’s most recent work done in his studios in Barcelona and Campins
over the course of the spring and summer this same year. At the same time, the
exhibition Forms for the 21st Century. Recent Work by Antoni Tàpies,
part of the Urban Majorities 1900-2005 Project, based at the
Fundació Antoni Tàpies, opens in the IES Barri Besòs secondary school in
Barcelona, where it is visited over the course of a week by almost 1.700
secondary school pupils. The bibliophile book Le soleil vu de dos,
with articles by Jacques Dupin and prints by Tàpies, is presented. Towards the
end of December, he attends the opening of the retrospective exhibition Tàpies’
Posters and the Public Sphere at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in
Barcelona. Other solo shows of his work are mounted in Porto, Lisbon, London,
New York and Toulon.
ANTONI TAPIES 2007-2009
2007
EMMA-Espoo Museum of Modern Art is having the first retrospective exhibition of
Antoni Tàpies in Finland. To mark the occasion the catalogue Antoni
Tàpies is to be published. On 5 November, the Fundació Antoni Tàpies
presents the portfolio 7 poemes a Antoni Tàpies(7 poems to Antoni
Tàpies), with poems by Jordi Carrió and a print by Antoni Tàpies. The
exhibition Tàpies Posters and the Public Sphere, organised by the
Fundació Antoni Tàpies, tours to the Cervantes Institute, Madrid, and to the
Museu Valencià de la Il·lustració i de la Modernitat (MuVIM) in Valencia.
2008
In February, two almost simultaneous exhibitions – Galeria Toni Tàpies,
Barcelona, and Waddington Galleries, London – present the artist’s most recent
work, produced in his studios in Barcelona and Campins during spring and summer
2007. The retrospective exhibition Tàpies Posters and the Public Sphere tours
to the Cervantes Institutes in Toulouse, Prague and Berlin. In May, Galerie
Lelong, Zurich, exhibits a selection of drawings and sketches from the nineteen
nineties and the present decade. At the end of November, an amended version of
the exhibition tours to Galerie Lelong, Paris. In December, Galería Soledad
Lorenzo, Madrid, has an exhibition of the work produced by the artist during
the summer in Campins. To mark the occasion of the artist’s 85th birthday, D.
Sam Abrams, Jordi Carrió, Marc Cuixart and Enric Satué have edited the
portfolio Tàpies escriu (Tàpies writes), with a selection of
texts by Antoni Tàpies and prints by Antoni Llena, Soledad Sevilla, Manel
Esclusa, Pere Formiguera, Joan Fontcuberta and Eulàlia Valldosera. The
portfolio will be presented on 13 December in the Auditorium of the Foment de
les Arts i del Disseny (FAD).
2009
Xavier Antich publishes the book Antoni Tàpies. En blanc i negre
(1955-2003). Assaigs, an anthology of texts by Tàpies previously published
in La pràctica de l’art (1970), L’art contra
l’estètica (1974), La realitat com a art (1982), Per
un art modern i progressista (1985), Valor de l’art (1993)
i L’art i els seus llocs (1999). The book also includes an
interview with Jean-Louis Andral, realised in Barcelona in 2002, and a text
rewritten by the artist on the occasion of the award ceremony of the Premio
Velázquez de Artes Plásticas in 2003. Together with Indiana University Press,
the Fundació Antoni Tàpies publishes A Personal Memoir. Fragments for
an Autobiography (Complete Writings. Volume I), the first English version
of the book by Antoni Tàpies Memòria personal. Fragment per a una
autobiografia (1977), and the first volume of the artist’s complete
written works. The publication presents Tàpies’ memoirs, together with
historical illustrations from various sources, including his own and his
family’s private archives, a chronology and a selection of works that show the
development of Tàpies’ artistic language from the 1940s to today. From May to
October, the exhibition Antoni Tàpies: The Resources of Rhetoric will
be at the Dia: Beacon, New York. He participates in the visual creation
of Event (2009), presented by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at
the Mercat de les Flors, with five works from the Fundació Antoni Tàpies’
Collection. Xavier Barral i Altet publishes Abecedari Tàpies. The
exhibition Antoni Tàpies: Materia e tempo opens at the MARCA
Museum in Catanzaro.
ANTONI TAPIES 2010-2012
2010
Galeria Toni Tàpies, Barcelona, shows Antoni Tàpies’ most recent work, realised
in his studio in Campins in summer 2009. The Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona,
reopens to the public after two years-closure for the rehabilitation of the
building, conducted by the firm of architects Ábalos+Sentkiewicz Arquitectos.
The inaugural exhibition is Antoni Tàpies. The Places of Art,
including works from Tàpies’ private collection and works made by the artist
during the last twenty years. To coincide with the reopening, the work Mitjó (Sock)
(maquette, 1991; work, 2010) is installed on the terrace of the Fundació. Mitjó was
a sculpture project for the Oval Hall of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya,
Barcelona, which, while having caused a great social impact both in favour and
against, was never realised. The Fundació Antoni Tàpies publishes, in Catalan
and Spanish, the first volume of the complete written works by Antoni
Tàpies Memòria personal. Fragment per a una autobiografia (Obra escrita
completa. Volum I) [A Personal Memoir. Fragments for an Autobiography
(Complete Writings. Volume I)]. On 10 March, Pere Gimferrer and Josep Miquel
Sobrer present the publication at the Auditorium of the Fundació. Together with
Televisió de Catalunya and Enciclopèdia Catalana, the Fundació releases the
documentary Te de Tàpies (T for Tàpies), directed by Carolina
Tubau and produced by Televisió de Catalunya. Juan Carlos I of Spain bestows
the title of marquis on the artist. He designs the logo commemorating the
thirtieth anniversary of the public presentation of the Associació d’Artistes
Visuals de Catalunya (AAVC), an organisation of which he is president. He
designs the poster commemorating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Saint
Francis Borgia. He is honoured by the 5th International Engraving Biennial of
Douro 2010 (August–October). The Fundació Palau, Caldes d’Estrac, organises an
exhibition of some the artist’s recent works entitled Antoni Tàpies.
Look at the Hand…(October 2010 – January 2011). Galeria Fernando Santos,
Oporto, organises the exhibition Antoni Tàpies. Graphic Works (November–December
2010).
2011
Galerie Lelong, Paris, shows the artist’s most recent work, made in his studio
in Campins in the summer of 2010 (February–April 2011). At the same time,
Galerie Boisserée, Cologne, organises the exhibition Antoni Tàpies.
Malerei und Graphik. He participates in the exhibition Realisme(s).
L’empremta de Courbet (Realism[s]. The Mark of Courbet), Museu
Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, MNAC, Barcelona. He produces the poster for the
12th Festival of Religious and World Music, Girona (28 June – 10 July 2011).
The Fundació Antoni Tàpies, together with Indiana University Press, Bloomington
& Indianapolis, publishes Collected Essays (Complete Writings.
Volume II), the English version of the second and last volume of the
artist’s complete written works. The publication includes La pràctica
de l’art (The Practice of Art), Barcelona: Ariel, 1970; L’art
contra l’estètica (Art Against Aesthetics), Barcelona: Ariel,
1974; La realitat com a art (Reality as Art), Barcelona:
Laertes, 1982; Per un art modern i progressista (For a Modern
and Progressive Art), Barcelona: Empúries, 1985; Valor de l’art (The
Value of Art), Barcelona: Empúries, 1993, and L’art i els seus llocs (The
Places of Art), Madrid: Ediciones Siruela, 1999, as well as an appendix of
assorted texts that had either not been included in the above publications or
postdate them. To celebrate the publication of this book, the Fundació Antoni
Tàpies and the Institut Ramon Llull organise the symposium, The
Critical Reception of the Work of Antoni Tàpies in the United States, at
the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, New York. The speakers are
Manuel Borja-Villel, Serge Guilbaut and Julia E. Robinson, with Robert Lubar as
moderator. He participates in the exhibition Louise Bourgeois. Antoni
Tàpies. Rencontre, Galería Soledad Lorenzo, Madrid, October–November 2011.
He exhibits paintings and drawings at the Galeria Toni Tàpies, Barcelona
(Novembre 2011 – January 2012). The Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Siegen,
organises the retrospective exhibition Bild, Körper, Pathos (November
2011 – February 2012).
2012
Antoni Tàpies dies at 88 years of age, February 6, in Barcelona. To pay
tribute, Fundació Antoni Tàpies allows free acces to the institution for
citizens, in order they can see some of Antoni Tàpies works on show.
https://fundaciotapies.org/en/biography/
You may read whole
biography to click above link …..
