MY MAGICAL ATTIC: ANTONI TAPIES AT TIMOTHY TAYLOR LONDON

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)

LLIBRE OBERT, 1989
Paint and Varnish on Canvas
Dimensions: 35 × 45 5/8 in. / 89 × 116 cm
(T0013712)

DUES URPES, 1989
Mixed Media on Paper
Dimensions: 47 1/4 × 31 1/2 in. / 120 × 80 cm
(T0013709)

MANTA NUADA, 2008
Paint and Collage on Canvas
Dimensions: 86 5/8 × 106 1/4 × 9 1/2 in. / 220 × 270 × 24 cm
(T0013713)

In his art, Antoni Tàpies uses different symbols as a vocabulary for the subconscious and the sacred. Signs appear on his canvases like wall writing, evoking the graffiti of Barcelona under the regime of Francisco Franco, who forbade the Catalan language to be spoken and written aloud. Exiled to the streets, protestors used the city itself as a place for expressing their native language.

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)

MA I PAISATGE, 2000
Paint and Pencil on Paper
Dimensions: 29 × 40 1/8 in. / 73.5 × 102 cm
(T0013742)

QUATRE PARTS, 2008
Mixed Media on Canvas
Dimensions: 63 3/4 × 102 3/8 in. / 162 × 260 cm
(T0013716)

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)

URPA, 2000
Aquatint Engraving in Various Inks and Embossed Roller
Dimensions: 20 1/2 × 18 7/8 in. / 52 × 48 cm
(TE0013743)

TRESPEUS, 1990
Etching, Carborundum, Mixed Media and Collage
Dimensions: 54 3/8 × 27 3/8 in. / 138 × 69.5 cm
(TE0013707)

'Tàpies liked mystery. It gives you something to decipher. He would never offer clues as to what something might mean,' explains Natasha Hebert, the artist's daughter-in-law and curator of the exhibition at Timothy Taylor. These uncanny marks - crosses, arrows, hearts and letters - carry more questions than answers.

ONA-MAR, 2006
Monotype of Grasscloth, Etching, Silkscreen With Paper Collage
Dimensions: 20 1/2 × 18 7/8 in. / 52 × 48 cm
(TE0013708)

TRIANGLE SOBRE MATERIA, 1999
Mixed Media on Wood
Dimensions: 15 × 18 1/8 in. / 38 × 46 cm
(T0013741)

DUES BOQUES, 1991
Paint on Paper
Dimensions: 47 1/4 × 31 3/4 in. 120 × 80.5 cm
(T009663)

MATRIU, 1991
Paint and Pencil on Paper
Dimensions: 30 7/8 × 41 3/4 in. / 78.5 × 106 cm
(T0013740)

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.

ANTONI TAPIES 1993-1994

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 …..

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February 02, 2023

ANTONI TAPIES AT TIMOTHY TAYLOR LONDON