Antoni Tàpies. The Collection #1

The Fundació Antoni Tàpies presents a new selection of the works of Antoni Tàpies belonging to the Collection. The exhibition, to take place in Space A, includes different moments in the artist’s creative trajectory from the 1940s to the present, and illustrates the typographies, techniques and materials appropriated by Tàpies.

The itinerary begins with several early works, from 1945, halfway between expressionist and dream paintings, loaded with symbolism and Northern references (especially Munch). It continues with works made from 1946 to 1947, characterised by the use of ‘poor’ materials, rarely used in traditional artistic practices.

Although immediately after 1946–47, his artistic production first acquired a Surrealist character (1948–51), and later an eminently abstract one (1952–53) – as we can see in works such as Nocturn (Nocturne, 1952) – toward 1954–55 Tàpies began to work once again with a variety of materials, enabling him to create the type of plastic language that would eventually define his later work. Works such as Forma negra sobre quadrat gris (Black Form on Grey Square, 1960), Palla i fusta (Straw and Wood, 1969), Metall i ampolla (Metal and Bottle, 1993) and Ascens-descens (Ascent-Descent, 1997), among others, reveal his preoccupation with matter (marble dust, sand, straw, metal, varnish), as well as his interest in images from the world around him (the parts of the body, everyday objects).

The itinerary will end with the screening of the documentary Te de Tàpies (T for Tàpies), 2004, directed by Carolina Tubau and produced by Televisió de Catalunya.