English
How do we confront the death of an artist? Because death is an everyday event, inherent to human nature, our culture, our material condition on earth. We are all willing to die, eventually, that we do not like death, that is for sure, but it is inevitable, as a poet once said its the reason in the first instance for being born. However an artist´s death shakes us further, especially if he has been of such importance, if his work has transcended into the hearts and minds of many people. Perhaps art is just that hard race against death, looking for ways to fix life in any way, any shape that is possible, a bond in order to perpetuate life on Earth. It sounds very romantic and “cliché”, but somehow we all findd a refuge in art of the everyday, an outlet to rebel ourselves, to think deeply and differently. A true artist summons these forces into one and takes us further than we ever thought, they takes us out of our small world and shakes us. Antoni Tapies was one of those artists.
Tapies was born in Barcelona in 1923 into a middle class family. After suffering lung disease, his interest in reading would increase even more, and he spend time devoted to drawing and painting. Later, and without thinking about it too much, he would leave his law studies for art so he can devote to it completely. During the forties he already was exhibiting his work and received recognition from specialized critics which up until today, continues as present as ever in all media. The story of his life now moves on to his works and in them Tapies is and was always was very much alive, just swinging like a bridge.
Tapies starts his search for meaning in art through waste, soil and dust, which forms the surface and where we reside. His paintings in which these elements are used, surprise by the size of them. Each stroke by Tapies is an effort to perpetuate this material that is constantly leaving us, it is the same texture of existence around us. Behind the link that Tapies had in his paintings with words, lines, stains and fabric, prevails an effort to create a greater and deeper bond with the material, with the environment that touches us and which we play with because we are the body that takes this link and other symbolic relations that are highly subversive and poetic to a new level. The journey and knowledge produced from this important work, can be found in the Tapies Foundation in Barcelona.
For more information, go here: http://www.fundaciotapies.org/
Get apartments in Barcelona and discover the great work of Antoni Tapies. Without a doubt one of the most important representatives of Catalan art of the twentieth century. Visit the Tapies Foundation to learn more about this singular artist.
