Tàpies Year begins under the slogan 'Tàpies lives. Live Tàpies'

Tàpies is alive. Viu Tàpies is the motto of the commemoration of the centenary of the birth of Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012) that the artist's foundation has chosen to invoke his legacy. It is a play on words with a mirror effect that claims the figure and the work of the creator and at the same time invites to approach it, to experience it, from new perspectives. "There are a series of very important artists during the second half of the 20th century - argues Núria Homs, curator of the Tàpies Year and curator of the Antoni Tàpies Foundation - who need to be explained in the 21st century. It may not happen in all cases, some have a state or a very strong institution behind them to make them visible, but others are not and are not so well known today, because, among other reasons, new artists have appeared that grab attention." In order to turn this situation around, the foundation has deployed a wide program of exhibitions and activities in collaboration with numerous institutions with the intention of "bringing Tàpies into the 21st century, bringing his legacy to the present", the curator emphasizes . "It is interesting to see that his concerns and interests are valid today: environmentalism, science, orientalism, the anti-colonialist view... In this sense - he continues -, Tàpies' work is alive and we interpellate."

Antoni Tàpies treballant al seu estudi de Barcelona, 1966-1967. Fotografia de Ralph Herrmanns © Ralph Herrmanns, 2023.

A tribute in thirteen months

The tribute program is structured, as they have progressed since the foundation half a year before starting the commemoration events [when this article is being written], on five axes: the approach to the creative process, the ties between art and science, the artist's political commitment, interest in Eastern philosophy and Japanese culture and new perspectives from different disciplines and generations. These axes are developed over thirteen months, in various formats, such as exhibitions, talks, workshops and publications. The intention is to present a Tàpies as an inexhaustible source of reading, encourage lines of research that have not been studied much, delve into his contributions, also in the field of writing and thought, and encourage new discourses that help to decipher the work of the total creator , as the critic Arnau Puig would say.

The Year of Tàpies begins on December 13 – coinciding with the birthday of the master of informalism – and the foundation's headquarters, epicenter of the celebrations, will be dressed up with a light intervention on the facade designed by the Antoni Arola studio and the opening of two exhibitions. The first, Tàpies. The Japanese imprint investigates Tàpies' interest in the work of some Japanese monks of the 18th and 19th centuries, transmitters of Zen Buddhism, and how this ended up marking his production in paintings, ceramics and drawings. And the second, A=A, B=B , curated by the artist Pep Vidal, takes as its starting point La nueva visión del mundo (1954), a book on philosophy of science, a publication of the head for Tàpies, which serves to trace the relationship between art and science with interventions by Irene Solà, Lúa Coderch, Jorge Carrión or Ian Walder, among others. Retrospectiva will arrive next summer, curated by Manuel Borja-Villell – great connoisseur of Tàpies' work and first director of the foundation, from 1990 to 1998–, after being inaugurated this September at Bozar in Brussels under the title Antoni Tàpies. The practice of art and of passing, in an expanded format, by Queen Sofia at the beginning of 2024. The exhibition brings together pieces, from numerous public and private collections from all over the world, that represent his extensive career, from 1943 until 2011. Also during next summer, the Museum of the History of Catalonia will host Tàpies. Art and activism , which explores, with a selection of posters created from the second half of the sixties, the artist's civic and ethical commitment to culture and country. "It's about delocalizing Tàpies - adds Homs -, to see how his work resonates and what it brings us today, to revisit it and explain it again in different institutions and formats."

Other stories

The Tàpies Year will begin with a new director at the head of the foundation. In October, Imma Prieto, from Es Baluard de Palma, joined the team after winning an international competition, and the event's organizers are looking forward to contributing somehow in the project.

In the company to open and update the story surrounding the artist's work, the journalist Rita Roig has been invited to moderate a cycle of conversations based on the texts and interests of the creator and the cultural prescriber Juliana Canet at a residence in the foundation along the ephemeris. Finally, Albert Serra will be in charge of closing the tribute. The filmmaker, who feels close to Tapia's thought, will present, as a colophon, on December 13, 2024, a film based on the universe of Antoni Tàpies, which will have, as detailed by Homs, "mysticism and materialism , as a guiding thread, and will have narrative and abstract elements”.