(Barcelona 1923–2012)
Gouache-Foot, 1971, signed tapies, acrylic, oil pastels and watercolour on strong handmade paper, 52.2 x 65.3 cm, framed, (PS)

Literature:
Anna Agusti: Tàpies, The Complete Works, vol. 3 1969-1975, Ed. Könemann 1997, no. 2405, p. 229 (with ill.)

Provenance:
Galerie Calart Actual, Geneva

Using cardboard and paper fascinates Antoni Tàpies. Their material structure is suited to communicating content that is vital to his work – spirituality, decay and pain. Tàpies interacts with a whole variety of different materials, techniques and methods in his work, blending and interweaving drawings, collage, painting and prints within a seemingly self-evident framework. Inspiration for a large number of the pieces – for instance the pictures of feet, legs and arms – is taken directly from Tàpies‘ life experience, and the sources find themselves repeated over and again throughout the creative process. The artworks, featuring fragments of the human body, are comparable with the votive pictures that believers bring to churches out of gratitude for a successful convalescence or as supplication for healing. Tàpies uses the outlandishly sized depiction of the motifs – here, for instance, a foot – to nudge onlookers into understanding that the whole universe can be perceived even in entirely banal objects.

‘An object has become a cosmos, and the entire universe is upon us. … It takes time to gradually discover what an author has invested in terms of intimacy, magnanimity, emotions and ideals.’ Antoni Tàpies