“ANTONI TÀPIES: FROM OBJECT TO SCULPTURE, 1964-2009"

Introduction

Rotllo de tela metàl·lica amb drap vermell Roll of Chicken Wire with Red Rag (Roll
of Chicken Wire with Red RagRotllo de tela metàl·licaambdrapvermell), 1970

Pila de plats Pile of Plates (Pile of PlatesPila de Plats), 1970

Nus marró Brown Knot (Brown KnotNus marró), 1964

Armari Wardrobe (WardrobeArmari), 1973

Caixó de serradures Sawdust Box (Sawdust BoxCaixó de serradures), 1969

Cadira i roba Chair and Clothes (Chair and ClothesCadira i roba), 1970

Llit Bed (BedLlit), 1988

Sabatilla Slipper (SlipperSabatilla), 1986

Banyera I Bathtub I (Bathtub Banyera I), 1988

La butaca The Armchair (The ArmchairLa butaca), 1987

Llibre I Book I (Book ILlibre I), 1987

Cassó Ladle (LadleCassó), 1997

Porta II Door II (Door IIPorta II),1987

Mur Wall (WallMur), 1991

Shunyata (Shunyata), 1993

Panera de roba Linen Basket (Linen BasketPanera de roba), 1993

Capçal i metall Bedhead and Metal (Bedhead and MetalCapçal i metall), 1993

Inverted Creu invertida Cross (Reversed CrossCreu invertida), 2002

Composició amb cistella Composition with Basket (Composition with

BasketComposició amb cistella), 1996

Trill Threshing Board (Threshing BoardTrill), 2009

Goodbye
1. Introduction
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao welcomes you to ANTONI TÁPES, : FROM
OBJECT TO SCULPTURE, (1964-2009). This audio guide provides commentaries
on twenty of the more than eighty works by Tàpies on display in the exhibition.
Throughout his life, Antoni Tàpies’Tàpies’s work was characterizsed by the
coherence of its aesthetic and conceptual agendapractice. The objects on display
here showcase the artist’s sculptural oeuvre and his experiments with different
techniques and materials, and provide a fascinating insight into the world as seen
through his eyes.

Antoni Tàpies, born in Barcelona in 1923, was one of Spain’s most charismatic 20th
century artists of the 20th century.

When the Spanish Civil War broke out he was thirteen years old. In 1941 he
suffered a lung infection, and it was during the forced seclusion of the years which
followed that he first took up painting.

In 1948, together with Joan Brossa and a group of like-minded artists, he founded
the journal Dau al Set, an attempt to revive Surrealism – the last avant avant-garde
movement to have prospered in Spain prior to the Civil War. Tàpies dedicated his
whole life to art and writing, continuing to work right up until his death in Barcelona
in 2012, at the age of 88.

Although at first Tàpies’Tàpies’s identified closely with Surrealism, his work soon
began to become more abstract and he started experimenting with new materials,
adopting a more informalist approach. It is now difficult to classify such a highly
personal , uncompromising style, full of mystery and, symbolism, and
determination, as belonging to any one particular artistic movement. Tàpies’Tàpies’s
insatiable curiosity also took him into the realms of sculpture and object
transformation. He experimented with all kinds of materials and forms, mixing and
juxtaposing objects, materials, and techniquesmediums. There are many
photographs of him at work in his studio. Tàpies was an inspired worker, forever
preparing material, crouching down, stretching, getting himself covered in paint, and
using whatever type of tools or instruments were at hand.

In the late 1960s, coinciding with the emergence, in Europe, of Arte Povera and, in
America, of Post Minimalism, Tàpies began to work with common, cheap, everyday
objects. In 1981 he started experimenting with chamotte fireclay and
terracottaceramics, and 1987 he began to incorporate bronze into his sculptures. For
Tàpies, each work represented a whole new avenue of investigation and an
opportunity to examine the behaviour of each element employed. He maintained his
interest in sculpture right up until his death.

This exhibition of objects and sculptures, organized by the Guggenheim Museum

Bilbao and curated by Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya, presents a comprehensive
overview of Tàpies’Tàpies’s approach to the three-dimensional
representationsobject, the wide variety of the materials he used, and his principal,
and most recurring, themes. It also constitutes a fascinating reappraisal of
Tàpies'Tàpies’s influence on present day art.

You can find out more about Tàpies'Tàpies’s career and other aspects of his work,
including his public commissionsprojects, in the didactic area located alongside the
classical rooms and in Gallery 201. You can also consult the exhibition catalogue
there.

Please remember that visitors are not permitted to touch, photograph, or make
recordings of the objects on display in the exhibition .
This exhibition was made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Iberdrola.
2. Roll of chicken wire with red rag, ROLL OF CHICKEN WIRE WITH RED RAG
ROTLLO DE TELA METÀL·LICAAMBDRAPVERMELL, 1970

In the exhibition cataloguecatalog, Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya quotes one

particularly eloquent reference to this work: “On September 10 1973, Robert T.
Buck, Jr., director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo commented as
follows on the donation of Roll of Chicken Wire with Red Rag: 'We are pleased to
accept your offer of this unusual and challenging sculpture to become part of the
permanent collection here’. This polite but somewhat ambiguous reaction set the
tone for all subsequent discussion of the sculptures Antoni Tàpies produced during
the course of his life”.

Tàpies employed chicken wire or mesh as the basic compositional element in several
of the works on display in this exhibition. As the artist himself said, each work has
its own special sound, its own peculiar properties which distinguish it from the
others. But they are all easier to understand when contemplated alongside other
works: they somehow complement each other and become more meaningful.

Chronologically, this sculpture - Roll of Chicken Wire with Red Rag - is the earliest
of the works. It comprises a roll of chicken wire pierced by two wooden battens, one
of which has a piece of red cloth hanging from it. It is an assemblage, a piece of art
which incorporates manufactured objects into its structure. The meaning underlying
Tàpies’Tàpies’s compositions is always enigmatic, but, for Rodríguez Fominaya,
“the chicken wire acts as an axis of coordinates, formally delimiting space and
recreating perspective. The mesh allows Tàpies to organize and stabilize the full
actualityillusion of three-dimensional representationity”.

Some critics have suggested that the torn strips of red cloth are an allusion to the
Catalan flag. Politically, Tàpies was always a firm supporter of pro-democratic
sectors and of Catalanism, self-determination, and this commitment is manifest in
the coherence and profundity of his artistic output..

Another work executed with chicken wire is Cloud and Chair, a sculpture which
Tàpies created in 1990 for the Fundació Antonin Tàpies building and a model of
which is on display here. It comprises a tangled mass of three hundred metres of
wire, from which the silhouette of a chair emerges, also made from the same wire.
The chair represents an attitude of reflection and aesthetic contemplation amid the
morass of ideas which complicate our world. The sculpture, which has come to
epitomize the Fundación Fundació Antoni Tàpies, rises up above the foundation’s
historic modernist Art Nouveau building, respecting its personality but yet at the
same time endowing it with a great sense of lightness and elevation. The building
foundationitself was conceived as a meeting place and a space for contemplation
which would perpetuate the spirit of Tàpies’Tàpies’s work.
3. Pile of Plates PILE OF PLATES PILA DE PLATS 1970

This pile of plates, a common sight in any home, here seems to take on a dramatic
new appearance with a meaning which, although not clear, seems strangely
compelling. With the simple act of piling up the plates, the artist has endowed them
with artistic significance.

For Barbara Catoir, “With everyday materials, Tàpies is neither representing nor
imitating reality. He is creating a new reality in art; a reality based on a subversion
of values comparable to that articulated by the romantic poets [....]. Novalis’
description of “romanticisingromanticizing” as endowing commonplace objects
with a higher significance, familiar things with a new, mysterious appearance, the
known with the dignity of the unknown, and finite things with the glow of
timelessness provides all the keys to an understanding of Antoni Tàpies’Tàpies’s
work. [...] but Novalis’s perception is also applicable to Tàpies in a reverse sense:
High ideals, the unknown, the mystical and the infinite [...] can all take on a
commonplace appearance”.

Tàpies attaches particular importance to simple, everyday, ordinary things, because

it is there that spirituality can be found. These white plates could hardly be simpler:
there is not one single element of decoration, not one instance of colour or relief.
The important thing is to be able to look at the most ordinary things around us and in
there recognise recognize the whole universe.

For Tomás Llorens, “the emotive nature of objects touched by life itself, and the
dramatic impact of this material marked by its contact with human activity, induces
us to see all of Tàpies’Tàpies’s work as a permanent reflection on the human
condition.”
4. BROWN KNOT BrownknotNUS MARRÓ, 1964

Cloth, hanging objects, and knots are recurring elements in Tàpies’Tàpies’s

creations. This is the oldest work in the exhibition. In From the 1960s onwards,
Tàpies adopted a new approach and began to experiment with ordinary, everyday
materials as new vehicles of artistic expression. Breaking free from the conventional
rectangular format of paintings, he produced a series number of works which
combined different materials to endow them with sculptural significance.

The entry for “Knot” in María José Balcells’ glossary in the exhibition catalogue
provides the following explanation: “The intertwining produced by the knot can be
spontaneous or intentional; it can tie or fasten. In the context of Tàpies’s oeuvre it
can signify the situation of being human in the universe or the symbiosis of the
spectator with the spectacle. It also alludes to the Moebius strip, a surface with a
single face and a single edge and which has the mathematical property of being a
non-orientable object. Tàpies himself has likewise stated that it refers to the snake
that bites its tail, to the figure eight, and to the void (these two words are pronounced
the same in Catalan). All these concepts are taken from Eastern philosophy. The
knot also suggests the action of tying, of binding, the meeting and point of departure
or crossing of different things, difficultyThe intertwining caused by a knot can be
spontaneous or deliberate: it can bind together or it can hold in place. In Tàpies’
work, it may represent the human being’s place in the universe or the symbiosis of
the observer and the observed. It also evokes the Mobius strip, a mathematically
non-orientable surface with only one side and one boundary component. In the same
vein, Tàpies himself stated that it represents a snake biting its own tail, but can also
be interpreted as the figure 8 or as “emptiness”, because the Catalan words for these
two concepts have the same pronunciation. All these associations have their roots in
Eastern philosophy. The knot also suggests the act of tying, binding and drawing
together, the nexus of union between different things and the idea of difficulty."

Tàpies defined “knot” as follows.

“A knot can symbolize the situation of manhuman being’s place in the universe. It
brings to mindcan evoke the idea of agreement concordance between the
spectatorviewer and the spectacle.”

Tàpies’Tàpies’s works are never easy to decipher, precisely because the ambiguity
of their possible meanings forms part of the mystery inherent in their creation. As
Eduardo Westerdahle says, “it is up to the spectator to seek out the key which may
provide a solution to the profound mystery underlying the material, although that
solution will always be impenetrable, partial and uncertain.”
5. WardrobeARMARI, 1973

This large work comprises a wooden wardrobe with its doors open. Inside we see a
higgledy-piggledy pile of clothes. This contrast between the container –— a piece of
furniture that is supposed to keep clothes tidy and well organized - —and the
contained - —the untidy clothes – —is a frequent feature in Tàpies’Tàpies’s work,
in which opposites are often mixed together.

On the inside of the left hand door there is a big letter A. On the other door the artist
has painted some patches of black and four vertical lines crossed by a horizontal
line, as if he were counting off 5.
The back of the wardrobe is broken, revealing the clothes inside, and has a big black
cross or T-shape. There are also some markings in white.
For Cirlot, Tàpies “uncovers a whole universe of signs, symbols, figures and
numbers, full of mythical connotations.”

The A and the T – –Antoni Tàpies’Tàpies’s initials – —appear in many of the

artist'shis works. Here they occupy the front and the rear of this impressive work
like a huge signature, as if they were the most important element in a kind of
modern vanitas, where the sancta sanctorum of human vanity has been disordered,
violated, broken up, and left open for all to see.

The wardrobe is presented as if it were an altar, on a pedestal covered with a roughly

textured piece of clothtapestry or carpeting that stretches out over the floor towards
the spectator. The object is thus elevated and kept at a distance from the spectator:
its sacred, spiritual nature is accentuated despite the fact that, although manipulated,
it is nevertheless just an ordinary, everyday piece of furniture.
6. Sawdust Box CAIXÓ DE SERRADURES, 1969

Here we see a square box made of unvarnished wood; a crude, simple, unassuming
object with a plank holding one side of the lid open to show what there is inside.
Actually, inside there is only sawdust. Tàpies’Tàpies’s intention seems to be to
subvert a chain of events: he has taken a creative activity which produces waste, and
then transformed that waste into an artistic object. This work of art is not a piece of
wood that has been sawn and shaped, but the waste – —the sawdust – —that fell to
the floor during the sawing process and was then collected and put into the box.

Tàpies again invites us to reflect. As Cirici Pellicer points out, “if the neo-capitalist
world turns everything into contamination and destruction, art rises up like a
Phoenix precisely from the waste that is produced.”

But the aim of Tàpies’Tàpies’s work is to ask questions, arouse interest, and
provoke reactions, and they invariably have more than one meaning. The process
of creation is similar to the process of life.

Let’s listen to what Miroslaw Balka wrote about this work:

The Volume of Waste Depends

on the Thickness of the Saw

First you have to choose the piece of wood you want to cut.
Then take a pencil to make a line.
Your saw will touch the line and follow it.
The most difficult is first touch.
It can go well and smoothly or generate problems.
Sometimes you do not get into the line you draw.
So there is an important decision to make.
To follow the incorrect and try to fix it on the way
or stop and begin again.
When the saw is in the wood, the process is under control.
Sometimes it goes harder.
Everything depends on the wood.
Sawdust is what falls down when you cut.
It covers the line you follow.
You have to blow it away from time to time.
Your breath touches the sawdust before it falls down.
Not too many people like sawdust.
It dirties clothes and workplace.
Our days we have systems of ventilation to take sawdust away.
We do not see much dust around as it is not healthy.
Apart from the saw which is usually electric,
you should have gloves, safety glasses and an efficient system of ventilation.
When the sawdust is already under your feet, you have to decide what to do with the
waste.
You have to take a sweeping brush and scoop.
Throw it away or feed your fireplace.
There is no necessity to mix it with wild chestnuts to make bread, as they did in
Auschwitz.
How can you take care of the leftovers which are carrying your energy, your time
and attention?
You can find a box and sweep sawdust in.
PS Assuming that in 1969 Antoni Tàpies used the hand saw.The amount of waste
depends on the thickness of the saw.

First you have to choose the piece of wood you want to cut.
Then take a pencil and draw a line.
The saw has to touch the line and follow it.
The hardest thing is the first touch.
It can go as smooth as silk, or there can be problems.
Sometimes you're not able to follow the line you drew.
So you have to make an important decision.
Keep sawing along the incorrect line and try to straighten up as you go,
or start again from the beginning.
One the saw is in the wood, the process is under control.
Sometimes it gets more difficult.
Everything depends on the wood.
Sawdust is what comes out as you saw.
It covers up the line you’re following.
You have to blow it away from time to time.
Your breath touches the sawdust before it falls.
Not many people like sawdust.
It dirties your clothes and your work place.
Today we have ventilation systems that eliminate sawdust.
We don’t usually have much dust around us, because it’s not healthy.
Apart from the saw, which is usually electric,
you should have gloves, safety goggles and an efficient ventilation system.
Once the sawdust is beneath your feet, you have to decide what to do with the waste.
You have to take a sweeping brush and scoop.
Throw the sawdust away or use it as fuel in your fireplace.
It’s not necessary to mix it with wild chestnuts to make bread, like they did at
Auschwitz.
What do you do with leftovers that are taking up your time, energy and attention?
You can find a box and put all the sawdust there.

P. S.: Assuming Antoni Tàpies used a hand saw in 1969.

7. Chair and clothes , 1970

Here we have a simple wooden chair, like those we can find in any home, with a pile
of clothes on it. The striking thing about this work is its sheer ordinariness. It is an
object we have seen thousands of times, something we wouldn’t pay the slightest
attention to if it were in a bedroom, but which surprises us, to say the least, when
seen out of context. It may remind us of ourselves, or bring to mind things from our
past, but it also invites us to reflect.

Chairs appear over and over again in Tàpies’Tàpies’s paintings, sculptures, and
assemblages. They are everyday objects, commonly used in many human activities.
Let’s listen to Tàpies himself:
“The Eastern religions say we should never despise anything; everything is reborn,
everything comes back... In my paintings I have done a lot of chairs, but I never
repeated a single one of them. That would have been preposterous. They are all
different, like the subjects in my paintings—none of them are identical to another.
Sometimes I look at the catalogue of my works and, when I see what I have done
over all these years, I realize that, ever since I consolidated my own language, those
works have always reflected a view of the world which varied with the social and
political circumstances in which they were done. That means I have always been
influenced by life”.

Tàpies'Tàpies’s work also features all kinds of clothes: worn, creased, torn clothes
—castoffs that the artist rescued so that they may continue to serve a purpose in life.
Tàpies probably didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Or did he? The clothes on
the chair look as if they have been left there quite carelessly, and it’s not very clear
whether they are formal clothes or house clothes, sheets, towels, dirty clothes,
clothes for ironing, clothes for washing, or clothes to be thrown away. Whatever
they are, they are objects taken straight from the reality of everyday life.

As Marjetica Potrĉ says, But what, if not life, is in a thing? “Things have a life of
their own; it’s simply a matter of waking up their souls,” Gabriel García Márquez
wrote in One Hundred Years of Solitude. Tàpies’s contribution to sculpture was to
awaken the souls of things in an age of objectness. Take for example his Cadira i
roba (Chair and Clothes), 1970: a bunch of used clothes are tossed over an old chair
as if by chance. The messy thing is suspended in time between what has just
happened and what will happen next—a state of the thing that is inevitably elusive.
Here we see a transitory presence that has been assembled for us by a craftsman-
archaeologist, a man from Barcelona.
8. BED BedLLIT, 1988

This sculpture in glazed enamel on firechamotte clay is an almost life-size

representation of a bed, or, more specifically, of a mattress and pillow. This
particular bed doesn’t look very comfortable. It hardly makes the spectator feel like
lying down on it, and in this respect it is like the chair and the wardrobe we have just
seen. They are all everyday objects but their purpose has somehow been subverted,
turning them into uncomfortable items which pose questions and stimulate
reflection.

The bed, another very frequent theme in Tàpies’Tàpies’s work, has particular
symbolic significance.

In his book A Personal Memoir, Tàpies wrote about his stay at the tuberculosis
clinic in Puig d’Olena when he was eighteen years old. While he was there, he read
German writer Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain by the German writer Thomas
Mann, and the patient in the next room lent him a book which was to mark his life:
The Principles of Art History, by the Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin. Tàpies
was bedridden for long periods of time due to illness during his childhood and
adolescence. He spent his time reading, painting, and drawing, but his confinement
also gave him time to reflect and form his own personal view of the world.

Tàpies first worked with clay in 1981 at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the South of France,
and continued his experiments in this discipline medium two years later in Gallifa, a
village near Barcelona, at the studio of Josep Llorens Artigas, the well known
Catalan ceramist and father of the sculptor Joan Gardy Artigas. Llorens’ studio had a
firewood fired kiln of the type recommended by Japanese ceramists for the
distinctive finish it produced, . It was also the studio in which Miró fired many of his
ceramic creations.

As noted by María José Balcells in the glossary, chamotte clay is a “mixture of clay
and fragments of fired and ground ceramic (chamotte). Chamotte is gritty and
contains a high percentage of silica and alumina. It can have different thicknesses
and colors depending on the type of material it is made from. Mixing it with clay
makes the latter more porous and reduces shrinkage and the appearance of cracks
during firing, resulting in a highly resistant clay. This mixture allows Tàpies to
produce large sculptures that withstand climate changes and are therefore suitable
for outdoors.”“clay mixed with fragments of fired, ground ceramic material (grog or
chamotte)”. Grog is grainy and contains a high percentage of silica and alumina. It
can have different thicknesses and colours, depending on its component materials.
When grog is mixed with clay, the clay becomes more porous. It also contracts and
cracks less during the firing process, and this makes it very strong. This mixture
enabled Tàpies to create large sculptures resistant to changing weather conditions
and therefore suitable for exhibition outdoors.
Signs and symbols appear frequently in Tàpies’Tàpies’s work, with very varied and
mysterious meanings. In this case there are two footprints on the pillow, just where
the head would be. Once again, two opposites are brought together: the The
conventional orientation of the object has been altered, transforming it into a
provocative, subversive element.
9. SSLIPPER lipper SABATILLA, 1986

Tàpies started working in ceramics just before his sixtieth birthday. Direct contact
with the earth represented a new challenge for him, a new area in which to
experiment. But his interest lay not so much in shaping objects on the potter’s
wheel, or in colour, as in the material itself and how it behaved.

Ceramics also allowed Tàpies to create large works like this Slipper for a two-metre
long foot. For María José Balcells, the slipper is “ The element that links man with
the earth, with the primeval. It is a humble object but also symbolizes freedom. The
slipper is found in several of Tàpies’s sculptures, both life-sized […] and magnified
[…] and is a sort of amplifier of reality, a sort of call for humility, simplicity, the
essential. The slipper may also refer to the artist himself, because it is one of the
everyday elements that could be found in his studio.”“Slipper is the nexus which
connects Man with the earth and with the primeval world. It is a simple object, but it
also symbolizes freedom. Slippers appear in several of Tàpies’ sculptures,
sometimes life sized and sometimes enlarged. In artistic terms, they seem somehow
to vindicate the value of unassuming, simple, essential things, acting as a kind of
amplifier of reality. The slipper can also be interpreted as a reference to Tàpies
himself, because it was one of the everyday objects he had in his studio.”

According to the Mallorcan poet Blai Bonet, “The large size of Tàpies’Tàpies’s
works forms part of their content. Largeness is an energy factor in itself, and is just
as plastic as the very structure.”

Tàpies produced much of his ceramic ware works at Aimé Maeght’s studio in
Grasse, where Hans Spinner introduced him to the mysteries of clay sculptingthis
technique. But it was the sculptor Eduardo Chillida who first encouraged him to start
working in this disciplinemedium:

“One day Eduardo Chillida called and told me this material was made for me, that
it was my material, and that I just had to start straight away. A few days later I went
to Venice, and it was true, I found the material appealing”.

As Blai Bonet points out, “Colour does not colour: it is the expression of an
elegance which is not abandoned even at the moment of greatest tragedy”. The
idea is echoed by Lourdes Cirlot: “When you consider certain ceramic works by
Antoni Tàpies, you may get the impression that you are looking at the remains of
something that existed in the past. The impression is supported on one hand by the
earthy, almost monochrome colouring, and, on the other, by the textural properties
of the objects themselves. [...] they somehow seem petrified, and they are able to
take us back to a distant past despite the fact that their forms are strangely
familiar.”.
10. Bathtub IBATHTUB BANYERA , 1988

Tàpies’Tàpies’s ceramic creations became increasingly complex in shape and size,

as we can see in this work, Banyera I (Bathtub I), dating from 1988. This free-
standing bathtub in glazed enamel on chamotte fireclay has no taps and is full of
painted symbols, scrawled writing, marks, stains, holes, and perforations. The
glazing enamel was applied over the porous ceramic surface to fix the colours.

This real, everyday, indispensable piece of household equipment represents

cleanliness, purification, and regeneration. The bathtub is an ordinary object with
great symbolic significance. Here it has been transformed through the creative
process into something which is the exact opposite of what it originally represented.
Who could possibly think about hygiene when confronted with such a dirty, broken
object.?
The scratches, fractures, perforations, and stains on its surface, the illegible graffiti
and the enigmatic signs and letters evoke long absent presences, impossible dreams,
fading hopes, and frustrated desires.

On the outside of the bathtub there is a cross, the definitive symbol of Western
Christian culture. Tàpies was an admirer of Eastern philosophy, but he also made
time to familiarizse himself with western thinkers. One of his favourites was the
13thth- century Mallorcan philosopher Ramón Llull, whom he described as the
archetypal mystic, scientist, philosopher, poet, sage, and man of action. For Tàpies:

“Llull’s insistence on the importance of painting only what is essential, what is truly
meaningful – —which, for him, meant the image of the cross – —is exemplary. But,
in symbolic terms, that model is just as valid as many others”.
11. The ArmchairTHE ARMCHAIR LA BUTACA, 1987

This is a life size representation in bronze of a single seat armchair upholstered in

padded leather. It has thin, fluted legs with small caster wheels; but one of the
wheels is missing and the leather is very worn and faded.

In 1987 Tàpies started using bronze for some of his sculptures. It was a material
which enabled him to continue with the experiments he had been carrying out with
ceramics but which offered much more scope in terms of creating works with
ordinary, everyday objects. The artist had some of these objects, like this armchair,
cast life size in bronze. But before making the mould, he scratched and tore the chair
even more to alter its appearance and produce a more uneven bronze surface. The
resulting bronze, varnished armchair looks old and worn out. It is also covered with
painted signs and symbols, and this further camouflages its real purpose.

The one conspicuous absence is that of a body, a human being – —an absence which
makes the armchair useless an object. The painted arrow pointing towards the seat
seems to be inviting us to perform an impossible action.

When Barbara Catoir asked Tàpies why he tore and damaged his works he replied:

“There is a whole series of intentions, and also polyvalences. Firstly, the act of
destruction perhaps expresses an idea that I have always wanted to convey: that
what we call reality is not reality. When I draw a head, for example, I immediately
feel the need to destroy it, because I have only captured its external appearance,
whereas the really important thing for me is what is hidden beneath that visible
form. Secondly, my art always includes symbols of destruction that cannot be
explained in a straightforward way because they come from my unconscious... The
idea of destruction has something nostalgic about it. Just think about ruins that have
crumbled away over time. They exude a powerful force; that’s why they have
inspired artists at all times in history. Art is full of ruins, reminders of mortality and
of the fleeting nature of life. And that inspires artists to resurrect, rebuild and
regenerate”.

Tàpies incorporates the effects of time into his work not as a melodramatic gesture
but as something inevitable. His works merely record and acknowledge the passage
of time.
12. BOOK Book I LLIBRE , 1987

A This group of small objects representing books and skulls, some executed in
bronze and others in chamotte fireclay, represent books and skulls. There are certain
themes to which Tàpies returned time and time again; themes he found so
meaningful, in either symbolic or real terms, that he was continuously analysing
analyzing them and reproducing them in different materials and different forms,
both in painting and in sculpture.

This painted bronze sculpture represents a book. Tàpies’Tàpies’s maternal

grandfather was a publisher and the owner of a bookshop,. and that probably
explains Tàpies’Tàpies’s own great love of books. The artist’s enthusiasm for books
encompassed both reading and writing. In parallel with his artistic activity, he wrote
essays, lectures, and articles and also several books analyzing art, the artist, and the
artist’s function in society. Originally written in Catalan, they have been translated
into several other languages. Tàpies argued for an Art both conscious of and
committed to contemporary issues, an Art capable of drawing attention to
fundamental problems.

He reflected, among other things, on some aspects of sculpture: “There does not
exist in what we call “the real”, the book, the skull, the armchair, but rather only
things book, skull or armchair, none of which is exactly the same as another and
whose singular nature is irreductible in both space and time. A considerable effort in
abstraction is necessary in order to name them “book”, “skull” or “armchair”.

For Barbara Catoir, “Tàpies is fond of all symbolic forms of expression, from simple
scrawled letters, jotted down notes in the pages of a notebook, calligraphy on
Japanese paper, and creased, stained shopping lists right through to books in all
their possible formats. For him, rather than depositories of words, books represent
reading and an interlocutor: they are meaningful as an aesthetic object, as a visual
experience”.

The A and T painted on the cover of the book are Tàpies’Tàpies’s initials. They
manifest the artist’s wish to proclaim his own involvement in the very essence of the
work, but they may also be interpreted as representing Antoni's close relationship
with his wife Teresa, the woman with whom he shared his life. The ear invites us to
listen to what the book has to say.
13. Ladle SAUCEPAN CASSÓ, 1997

A blackened, dirty, very used kitchen saucepan has a strip of paper hanging over its
rim as if the milk being boiled in the pan were overflowing. In this assemblage,
Tàpies combines an everyday household object with one of his favourite materials.
Possibly due to the influence of Eastern cultures, he always had a penchant for the
warm feel of paper in all its different guises - —antique books, drawings, posters,
etchings, and sculptures. And in all these expressive forms he demonstrated the
maturity and coherence of his plastic proposals.

Tàpies sought cheap, modest materials in order to bring about a metamorphosis. He

took this saucepan from an old kitchen and placed it alongside a deliberately folded,
shaped piece of paper to create a work with a title totally lacking in meaning. The
titles of Tàpies’Tàpies’s works rarely provide explanations; they merely describe
the forms or the materials employed.

In this exhibition we can see paper being used in many ways: as a cardboard box,
as a wrapping, as the object inside the wrapping, as a newspaper, as
streamersserpentines, as cones, etc.

Tàpies himself described his relationship with paper, his modus operandi:

From a traditional point of view, I can be said to have treated the support with little
respect. I have always tried to transform paper, give it relief, stick on external
elements, or tear it. Just as I have done paintings that were not very pictorial, I have
created works with elements that tended to be antithetical to those works”.

Tàpies took paper, a familiar, everyday, warm, smooth, malleable material, and used
it to create something wholly unexpected: a sculpture. Paper comes from wood,
another material much loved, and much used, by the artist. As José-Miguel Ullán
says, “Tàpies managed to do the most unimaginable things with paper, and
interpreted it in all the ways anyone could possibly have wished”.
14. DOOR Door II PORTA , 1987

In the glossary, the “door” is defined as “Object found in Tàpies’s painting and
sculpture both separately and as part of a whole (wall, cupboard). It may be open or
closed. The closed door is ambivalent as it invites us to open it to see what there is
behind it, to visit other worlds; but it also has a hermetic nature as it prevents us
going in. It can also signify death or lead us to reflect on existence. When open it
invites us to come in or shows us what there is inside. When viewed as an indoor
element it alludes to the house, the homeland, or one’s inner self.an object which
appears in Tàpies’ paintings and sculptures both as a self-standing element and as
part of a larger ensemble (a wall, a wardrobe). It may be shown open or closed. A
closed door is ambivalent; it invites us to open it to see what is on the other side, to
visit other worlds, but it is also secretive , because it bars our way. It can also
represent death, or inspire us to reflect on existence. An open door invites us to go
through it, and find out what there is inside. If it is an interior door, it may represent
the house itself, the homeland or one’s own inner self”.

In 1987 Tàpies did three doors, two in chamotte fireclay and one in bronze. He
considered the artist as a man of the laboratory, a man who works and thinks in
solitude, a researcher locked away in his workshop, and, as he saw it, “only through
day to day experimentation and being alert at all times is it sometimes possible for
the miracle to occur in which inherently inert materials, at the least expected
moment, begin to speak with an expressive force unlike almost anything else.”.

On one side of this door the number 327 has been painted in white. We can see
moulded panel lines, a peephole, and holes for the hinges. There are also several
signs and letters scrawled on the surface. On the other side, we see the phrase “Porte
sans porte” written inside a white circle, with three crosses underneath.

When Barbara Catoir asked Tàpies what these inscriptions meant, he replied:

I add the signs spontaneously, intuitively... but I write the letters with very different
meanings in mind: The A as the beginning, the limit, the T as a stylized crucifix, and
also as the initial of my name. The cross as a meeting place, a set of coordinates,
etc.”

For Roland Penrose, “the traditional significance of the door is based on its function
as the means of access into a space, into a life even, on the other side. The door is
basically an opening up, a negation of the limitation inevitably represented by a
wall. But Tàpies often likes to block it off. It ought to be open or closed, but he
insists on its metaphysical dimension as a dividing line between two worlds.
Tàpies’Tàpies’s doors suggest that interior and exterior are the same thing, or at
least have the same meaning, and this paradox is used to vindicate the duality and
unity inherent in all things and the coexistence of opposites.”
15. WALL Wall , 1991

If there is one element which can be said to be recurrent throughout Tàpies'Tàpies’s

oeuvre - —in his paintings, his sculptures, and also in his written works - —it is the
wall. The wall is also a theme that has been commented upon by all the thinkers who
have come to analyse analyze Tàpies’Tàpies’s work.

The hidden mystery and the aesthetic potential present in walls motivated Tàpies to
address the theme on numerous occasions. This wall is executed in glazed enamel on
firechamotte clay. It is divided into sections and covered with inscribed or painted
markings. The lower slabs have been cut to reproduce grilles similar to the peephole
on the door we have just seen, although here they are horizontal. On the upper slabs
there are three taps - —objects presented completely out of context. These are the
taps that were missing in the bathtubs we saw earlier. Like the works we have
already looked at, this one also displays a full repertoire of signs, scrawlings, hearts,
crosses, numbers, and footprints.

According to Barbara Catoir, “writing became an integral part of (Tàpies’Tàpies’s)

work. Letters, numbers and hieroglyphics enshroud his creation like a mysterious
second language. [...] Meaning is conveyed through concealment. Enigma itself
becomes a precept of communication”.

With regard to the wall, Jacques Dupin posed the question: “What are those
stretches of wall? They are precisely that: a wall in which all painting is condensed
and denied, and is born again exclusively through its own efforts. The obstacle
before which time grinds to a halt and eyes are opened, as at the very beginning.
This wall has been neither manufactured nor built, but rather seized and torn from
reality.”

In his essay “Communication on the Wall”, Tàpies himself provided some clues to
the meaning of these walls:

“How many suggestions can be derived from the image of the wall and all its
possible permutations! Separation, cloistering, the wailing wall, prison, witness to
the passing of time; smooth surfaces, serene and white; tortured surfaces, old and
decrepit; signs of human imprints, objects, natural elements; a sense of struggle, of
effort; of destruction, cataclysm; or of construction, re-emergence, equilibrium;
traces of love, pain, disgust, disorder; the romantic prestige of ruins; the contribution
of organic elements [...]; generalized matter; affirmation of and esteem for the things
of the earth; [...] a sense of falling, of the bottom falling out, of expansion, of
concentration; the rejection of the world, inner contemplation, annihilation of the
passions, silence, death; twisting and tortures [...]; the equivalent of sounds,
clawings, scrapings, explosions, shots, blows, hammerings, cries, reverberations,
echoes in space; meditation on a cosmic theme, reflections for contemplations of the
earth, of the magma, of lava, of ash; battlefield; garden; playing field; the destiny of
the ephemeral. [...] So many things arose that appeared to establish a proud kinship
between me and those philosophies and wisdoms I so esteemed!”How many
possibilities may arise from the image of the ‘wall’ and everything diverted from it!
Separation, isolation, wailing walls, prison walls, witnesses of the passing of time;
smooth, calm, white surfaces, tortured, old, perished surfaces: signs of human
intervention, traces of objects of the force of nature; impressions of battle, of
exertion, of destruction, of catastrophes or of renovation, creating and balance;
what is left of love, grief, aversion, chaos, romantic enchantment of silted ruins by
organic matter; shapes from which one can read the rhythm of nature and the
spontaneous mobility of matter; a sense of landscape, a hint of the primordial unity
of all things; commonplace material; vindication and exaltation of all things
earthly; the opportunity to distribute large volumes in multiple forms and
combinations, impressions of decline, collapse, expansion, concentration; rejection
of the world, inner contemplation, annulment of passions, silence, death; mutilation
and torture, chopped up bodies, human remains, parallel sounds, cuts, scratches,
explosions, shots, hammering, shouts, echoes reverberating in space; meditations on
the universe, contemplation of the Earth, its lava, its magma and its ash; a
battlefield; a garden; a playing field; the fate of the ephemeral [...] And so, so many
things which seemed to bring me into proud contact with philosophies and sciences
that I so admired!".
16. Shunyata (SHUNYATA), 1993

The Sanskrit word shunyata is a noun that can be translated as opening, emptiness or
interdependence.

In the 1950s Tàpies began to study Eastern philosophy. He found it interesting

because he saw that it addressed issues such as the importance of material and
Man’s identification with Nature: issues which ran contrary to a Western culture that
had to a large extent turned its back on the natural environment, and which he had
already started integrating into his own work.

From a very early age Tàpies was very receptive to Zen, an Eastern form of
meditative spirituality which continued to influence his attitudes throughout his life.
The artist himself explained:

“For a westerner the idea of acquiring knowledge, and by extension all the values
associated with knowledge, has much to do with a fighting spirit, with the control of
Nature, with academic qualifications and with spiritual and material enrichment,
sometimes to the point making concessions to those in power; in contrast, for an
adept of Mahayana Buddhism, it is bound up with the idea of innocence, ignorance
and poverty. For him, the fundamental virtue is poverty, which corresponds, from
an ontological point of view, to Emptiness, and, from a psychological point of view,
to an absence of selfishness and to innocence – the other mainstay of Zen truth”.

This work is an assemblage of found objects, simple everyday items characterized

by their austere, unadorned form. It comprises a kind of wooden box, or low,
Japanese-style table, on which there stands an ordinary glass beaker on a white
saucer and a piece of paper bearing a handwritten list of ingredients for a bakery
recipe belonging toof Tàpies’Tàpies’s wife, Teresa. The recipe seems to be for an
apple pie.

The title of the work appears in the lower part of the box, with some of the letters
upside down.

For Tàpies, art ideally means contemplation. Its main function should therefore be to
shake people’s consciences and invite them to open themselves up to the world, see
it for what it is and seek out ways of making our lives more meaningful and
improving our understanding of others and of Nature. According to Zen Buddhism,
it is in everyday life that the contemplative experience has the most relevance.
17. Linen Basket LINEN BASKET PANERA DE ROBA, 1993

In 1994 the Waddington Galleries in London organized an exhibition entitled Antoni

Tàpies, . A Summer’s Work. In the exhibition cataloguecatalog, Manuel Borja-Villel
wrote that the works on display in London were “inevitably executed in the summer
of 1993 and somehow mirror the artist’s creative process. They link up with each
other in a continuous, non-narrative sequence characterized more by Tàpies’Tàpies’s
own obsessions than by any discursive quest or linear evolution in their language”.
An ordinary dirty linen basket, just like those that can be seen in any household, has
been tipped over and its contents have been spread out on the floor. Some dark
coloured garments have formed a cross shape on the floor, and inside the basket we
can see a grey sock, a pair of jeans and a white garment: they are just ordinary,
everyday clothes. A rectangular piece of white cloth has been sewn to the outside
of the basket as if it were a label and some symbols have been written on it,
including a cross. As always, the calligraphic element is very much present.

In an essay published in 1990, Antoni Tàpies wrote:

“However varied the things the intellectual and the artist do, they are always in the
end writing the same book and expounding ideals which are almost unique”.

As we have seen, Tàpies was continuously repeating objects and returning over and
over again to the same themes. Baskets and clothes, either together or separate, on
their own or side by side with other objects, appear in many of his creations. Once
again, the everyday object is exalted and transformed into a work of art.
18. Bed Head and Metal BEDHEAD AND METAL CAPÇAL I METALL, 1993

This is another of the works presented in the Waddington Galleries exhibition in the
summer of 1993. Tàpies did these sculptures immediately after taking part in the
45th Venice Biennale, where he was awarded the Leone d’Oro.

The work Tàpies presented in Venice, entitled Rinzen, is analysed analyzed by

Anatxu Zabalbeascoa in the exhibition cataloguecatalog: “The installation (with a
Japanese title that can be translated as “sudden awakening”) was created during the
Balkan war and expresses a protest against that war and against violence using a
large four-meter-long bed, chairs, and paint and graphite on
the walls. The metal bed is white and is suspended from the walls of the entrance
foyer. It throws off its bases, which are displayed in unstable balance. A numbering
that begins on the wall splits the work and draws it, by means of metal chairs, to the
terrace of the museum. Life often begins and ends in a hospital bed. This icon of
suffering and happiness brings the life cycle to a close, but also reminds us that there
was once a time when attending to a sick person meant dying with him.The
installation (with a Japanese title that can be translated as “sudden awakening”) was
created during the Balkan War and constitutes an act of protest against both that war
and violence in general. It comprises a huge, four metre long metal bed, chairs, and
walls covered in paint and graffiti. The bed is white and is displayed hanging from
the walls in the vestibule. From it hang a number of bed bases, suspended in
unstable equilibrium. A sequence of numbers starting on the wall fragments the
work, extending it laterally to the metal chairs on the terrace of the venue. Life often
begins and ends in a hospital bed. The bed is an icon of suffering and joy which
draws the life cycle to an end, but which also reminds us that there was once a time
when caring for a sick person meant dying with that person.”

The title Rinzen, meaning “sudden awakening”, refers to the sudden awakening of
the conscience which takes place when contemplation leads to inner enlightenment
and to a higher state of subjective awareness.

Another of the participants at the 1993 Biennale was the sculptress Cristina Iglesias.
She recalls her meeting with Tàpies:

It was the beginning of summer. I remember those days working in my rooms. I was
mounting
iron and alabaster sculptures that I corrected in situ, re-drawing the line on the wall,
resoldering the iron rails and adjusting the alabaster stones.

We shared the pavilion. He occupied that central room and I the five surrounding
ones.
I arrived several days beforehand to set everything up. He would arrive around
midday and
shut himself away with his assistants in the central room, his room, whose entrance
was
covered with a white sheet that prevented you seeing what was going on inside.

One day, in the afternoon, Tàpies stopped me when I was going past the entrance
and
invited me inside his space. I had seen the bed base and a few elements arrive, but I
was
surprised to see the piece on the wall. Everything about it was a moment of surprise
and
elevation. Perhaps the moment when you awaken from a dream, startled. And also
elevation
in its most spiritual sense. The horizontal element, the bed, now positioned vertically
on the
wall with the pWillows tossed out. Composition in a fragile balance. 1, 2 and 3. The
lifeless
chairs.

I thought of insomnia.” It was early summer. I remember I spent those days working
on my rooms. I was putting together iron and alabaster sculptures, correcting them
in situ, redrawing the line on the wall, re-welding the iron rails and positioning the
alabaster stones.
We were in the same pavilion. He was in the middle room and I was in the five
rooms around it. I arrived several days early to set up the installation. He arrived
around midday and locked himself away with his assistants in the middle room, his
room. The doorway was covered with a white cloth and it was impossible to see
what was going on inside.
One afternoon, Tàpies stopped me as I was passing the entrance and invited me into
his space. I had seen the bedstead and some other elements arrive, but I was
surprised when I saw the work on the wall. It was all a very surprising, uplifting
moment, perhaps like that moment when you suddenly wake up with a jolt. And it
was also uplifting in the spiritual sense. Something horizontal, the bed, was now
vertical on the wall with the pillows in disarray. A composition in fragile
equilibrium. 1, 2 and 3. The chairs lifeless.
I thought of insomnia".

The work, which again talks to us of illness, hospitals, convalescence, life and death,
is flamboyantly signed with the ubiquitous A and T: the initials of Antoni Tàpies, or
the initials of Antoni and Teresa, or the A symbolising symbolizing the beginning
and the cross symbolising symbolizing the end.

You can learn more about Rinzen in the didactic area of the exhibition.
19. Reversed Cross INVERTED CROSS CREU INVERTIDA, 2002

Many of the sculptures in this exhibition display crosses. Sometimes they are
painted, carved, or sunken into the surface of a work, and sometimes they are made
from clothes or attached as pieces of paper. But here we have a completely self-
standing cross as the main theme of the work. Executed in glazed enamel on
firechamotte clay and positioned upside down on a pedestal, Tápies has painted
some marks on its surface and perforated its shaft with a branch he found out in the
country. The cross, a key iconographical element in the History of Art, is a hieratic,
extremely uncompromising symbol of great expressive force.

In the glossary, María José Balcells describes the cross as “perhaps the sign most
commonly used by the artist. There are many types and it has a great many
meanings. It can be diagonal—in the shape of an X—a Greek cross (with all four
arms the same size), etc. Tàpies uses it as the initial letter of his surname, but since
ancient times it has been a symbol of the combination of opposites and of
predestination. It also alludes to crucifixion and accordingly to sorrow and death. It
may refer to the plus sign or suggest spatial coordinates; it can also be the mark of a
territory, a place. It is likewise the signature of the illiterateperhaps the symbol most
frequently used by the artist. There are many types of cross, and it has a wide variety
of meanings. [...] Tàpies uses it as the initial of his own surname, but ever since
ancient times it has symbolised the coming together of opposites, and predestination.
It also alludes to Christ’s crucifixion, and therefore to suffering and death. It can be
taken to refer to the plus sign, to suggest spatial coordinates, or to represent a
landmark. Its horizontal arm evokes material things; its vertical shaft, the spiritual
dimension. And, tilted to form an X, it can represent the unknown or serve as a
signature for the illiterate”.

The symbology of the cross was also discussed by Roland Penrose: “The cross is a
very old, universal symbol open to many interpretations and shared by many
primitive civilizations before it came to symbolise symbolize the Christian faith..
Here, coincidentally, it is also significant for its similarity with the first letter of
Tàpies’Tàpies’s surname. Its most basic meaning is as an intersection marked out
at a specific point in space, an intersection which also constitutes the nexus of union
between two opposing directions – —the vertical and horizontal axes: it is the point
where one of those axes is negated by the other. It is also used as a plus sign, which
may join together two entities or stand in isolation between two empty spaces. Its
vertical axis is associated with transcendental hopes and ambitions, its horizontal
axis with the density of matter. In purely static terms the cross marks the point at
which both of these dimensions come together, but in active terms it represents
either the submission of the spirit to the material world or, on the contrary, the
impregnation of matter with spiritual significance. It is therefore hardly surprising
that this symbol has played such an important role in Tàpies’Tàpies’s work. If we
want fully to understand his oeuvre we need to go beyond the habitual religious
interpretation.”.
20. Composition with basket COMPOSITION WITH BASKET COMPOSICIÓ
AMB CISTELLA, 1996

This work in bronze represents a rather battered cardboard box, half open and with a
big black painted cross and a basket inside. The symbols carved into the bronze
include three crosses, a number three and several scratches.

In the late 1990s Tàpies produced a number of new series in bronze. In some of the
larger ones he focussed attention on a basket – —a popular, commonplace
household object. The artist's sculptures in this period differed from those he had
produced in the previous decade both in the effect of the patina and the pigmentation
applied and in the incorporation of elements which referred directly to the process of
assemblage. This new approach is exemplified in Caixa i cadira ( Box and Chair),
executed in 1999, and in the work we see here, Composition with Basket.

The use of forms as signs, as metaphysical images of reality, is a typical feature of

Tàpies’Tàpies’s work. As Alexander Cirici Pellicer points out, “the fact that the
artist wishes to go one step further, beyond all possible interpretations, does not
imply that he does not know, as we all do, that coming to terms with reality is
something that is habitually done through symbological systems. That is what signs
and symbols are for. But we have to penetrate the protective shell they form to
discover the hazy universe of indescribable reality that is hidden behind them and
which existed before their creation. We will forget true meanings, but signs provide
us with clues that will at least help us to understand their significance.”

A black cross inside the box; three crosses on the outside opposite three holes; the
number three, with all its associated trinitarian symbolism; and below, an ordinary
basket, a basket that might be seen in any rural or urban setting, a deliberately
commonplace, popular object: all these elements indicate the rich meaningfulness
underlying the apparent austerity of Tàpies’Tàpies’s work.
21. Threshing boardTHRESHING BOARD TRILL, 2009

This is the last sculpture Tàpies produced, and it shows how the artist remained fully
committed to his quest of artistic exploration right to the very end.

Here, he took an agricultural tool, a kind of objet trouvé, a found object, and
transformed it into a sculpture simply by adding a rectangular black panel with
mathematical signs painted in white, as if it were a label explaining the work. Again,
we see a world of opposites: black and white, the world of agriculture and the world
of science, the object and the paint...

In 1960 Tàpies had acquired an old country house in Campins, in the Montseny area
of Catalonia. There, amid cork oak trees in an idyllic woodland setting, he worked
totally at ease, unconstrained by the hustle and bustle of the city. He was at one with
Nature, subject to none of the social conventions he was obliged to observe at his
habitual residence in downtown Barcelona. He also drew on his interest in Eastern
philosophy to help consolidate this new found communion with Nature. Tàpies
himself explained:

The idea of a self-sufficient “creator”, quite separate from the “creature created”,
has been inculcated in our minds for centuries, as has the idea of an autonomous
“self” independent of the universe, and, therefore, of a body independent of space...
This has had a huge impact on our psyche, and has nurtured a sense of antagonism,
hostility and conquest towards Nature diametrically opposed to the sense of identity
and collaboration which is so finely developed in the East”.