Selections from the Permanent Collection

Inaugural exhibition.

On 5 June the new headquarters of Fundació Antoni Tàpies was inaugurated, marking the beginning of its public activities.

To celebrate the occasion, an institutional event was organised and was attended by the president of the Catalan Government, the Rt. Hon. Jordi Pujol, the minister of Culture, H.E. Jorge Semprún, the Catalan Government councillor for Culture, the Hon. Dr. Joan Guitart and the mayor of Barcelona, H.E. Pasqual Maragall. Among the other guests were representatives of the cultural institutions of Barcelona and Spain and leading members of the national and international artistic community.

The inaugural exhibition, entitled Selections from the Permanent Collection, was an important sample of the works (paintings, sculptures and drawings) donated to the Foundation by Antoni Tàpies. It is worthy of note that the Tàpies donation carries on a tradition that began with Picasso and continued with Miró, thanks to which the Barcelona public can now enjoy major monographic collections of some of the outstanding artists of the 20th century.

Selections from the Permanent Collection was curated by Manuel J. Borja-Villel, director of the Foundation Museum. Besides being an account of Tàpies’ artistic discourse over his long career, it showed the ongoing dialogue between the Foundation Collection and the other exhibition spaces.

To coincide with the beginning of its activities, the Foundation launched a lavishly illustrated publication dealing with the most important features of its headquarters and its permanent collection, as well as the second volume of the catalogue raisonné of the work of Antoni Tàpies (Tàpies. Complete Works. Volume 2. 1961-1968), published by the Foundation and directed by Anna Agustí.