COLLECTION - Fundació Antoni Tàpies

Press release
COLLECTION
27 July – 16 September 2007
Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona
Press Department: Alexandra Laudo; press@ftapies.com
Tel: (+34) 834 870 315 | Fax: (+34) 934 870 009 |
Fundació Antoni Tàpies | Aragó, 255 | 08007 Barcelona, Spain
http://www.fundaciotapies.org
Fundació Antoni Tàpies presents a new selection of works from the Collection that
brings together paintings, sculptures and drawings from the 1940s up to the
present. This year's selection also includes the work Matèria i cartons (2006), which
was the most recent donation by Antoni and Teresa Tàpies to the Fundació, as well
as Maqueta de núvol i cadira (1988), a miniature model of the artist’s sculpture,
which sits atop the building that houses the Fundació. The exhibition may be visited
using an audio guide which offers the visitor a complete vision of the Fundació (see
press release: Audio guides of the Collection). The exhibition takes on a
chronological character which shows the conceptual and formal unity of this artist
and demonstrates the parallel existing between Antoni Tàpies's artistic career and
contemporary political, social and artistic events. In this sense, Tàpies's work takes
part in the strictest modernity in the way it meshes closely with the civic, ethical
and political unrest of each moment.
At the end of the 1940s, in a rejection of the conservative art supported by Franco's
dictatorship, Antoni Tàpies and other artists and writers participated in the
recuperation of surrealism -the last avant-guard movement before the Spanish Civil
War - a symbol of modernity and transgression. Works of a surrealist nature form
this period include Tríptic (1948), Parafaragamus (1949) and La barberia dels
maleïts i dels elegits (1950).
During the 1950s, with fresh memories of Second World War and the dropping of
the atomic bomb, Tàpies’s work coincide with a generalised awareness of matter
and science affecting European as well as North American artists. This interest
takes form in the use of materials foreign to academic plastic expression and in
experimentation with new techniques. These would develop into matter painting, a
technique that continues throughout his work until the present. A work like Matèria
en forma de peu (1965) is an example.
Along the same lines, his involvement in the growing anti-Franco campaign and in
favour of democracy in the late 1960s and early 1970s influence his works with
specific testimonies like A la memòria de Salvador Puig Antich (1974). They
reaffirm his conception of the artist as someone committed to society, someone
who, through his works, helps to know, witness, understand and see. In the
international scene, these are years that exude a certain interest for objects. We
find works from this period in which Tàpies incorporates objects from his everyday
life, like Armari (1973).
The return of democracy to Spain in the eighties signifies for Tàpies a recuperation
of the canvas within the scope of a return to painting in the international scene.
During these years, he creates works with foam rubber (Capitonat, 1986) or with
the aerosol technique (Efecte d’arrugues i taronja, 1979), uses varnishes (Figura
amb parpella, 1989) and creates objects and sculptures of refractory clay (Cap

embenat, 1981) or of bronze (Crani 376, 1987). On the other hand, toward the end
of this decade his interest for eastern cultures is reinforced. This concern had
already incubated during the years after the Civil War and went on to become a
fundamental philosophical influence in his work for its emphasis on materials, for
the identification of man with nature and denial of western dualism. Likewise,
Tàpies feels influenced by a new generation of scientists that support a vision of the
universe that understands matter as a whole which is subject to change and
constant formation.
In the 1990s, his interest in eastern art and philosophy increases, as can be seen in
works like Trio (díptic) (1994), an homage to the Japanese monk Sengai and his
teachings. In recent years, Tàpies has returned to his origins, with a clear desire to
reaffirm and consolidate criteria. The presence of matter is also renewed in the
works of this period which indicates that everything participates in the continuing
impulse to form, transform or deform which is dictated by the rhythm of the
universe (Dues formes, 1999; Matèria i cartons, 2006). Likewise, the fragmented
body reappears (1/2, 2003) often represented on a larger-than-life scale.
Amplifying a small and simple body, Tàpies makes it cosmic. This is one of the keys
that the artist has wanted to show throughout his career.
Fundació Antoni Tàpies. July 2007