IDEAS: ART 31
BODY OF WORK
Members, 2002
O
Two bodies, 2008
All images © Fundació Antoni Tàpies/Vegap. Photos © Gasull Fotograifia, 2012
On show now at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies is a series of figurative works by the eponymous artist that were created during his later years. By Will Shank.
Legs, 2001
ne thinks usually of Tàpies as an abstract artist, so it
oversized sock on the terrace level of the Tàpies Foundation
is refreshing to view this examination of his figurative
called Mitjó. The metal sculpture betrays a sly sense of humour
work. His deeply incised lines within the plaster-and-
creeping into his often sombre work. Tàpies’s frayed sock seems
sand matrix serve him well as he explores the human figure. His
to be channelling Claus Oldenberg, and while it is not a part of the
subtractive techniques of gouging and scraping his medium are
figurative exhibition downstairs, it does meet its theme handily,
used to create the most basic human forms—a naval, a vagina,
or footily. Mitjó was supposed to be a colossal installation in the
a mouth—while letting his abstracted shapes and earthy palette
central courtyard of MNAC as part of the 1992 Olympics, but a
swirl around them. Wonderful images prevail in the Tàpies
conservative board of directors shot the idea down. That decision
Foundation’s galleries, from the painting of horizontally stacked-up
turned out to be Barcelona’s loss, but the maquette survives and
limbs that ambiguously form a pattern across the panel (Members,
the 1991 piece was installed at the Tàpies Foundation when it
2002) to works on paper like the Skull of 2010, which cannot
re-opened in 2010. Its twisted metal interior, which protrudes here
be dismissed as the likely musing of an 87-year-old on the final
and there from the sock shape, shares a lively dialogue with Cloud
chapter of his life.
and Chair (1990), on the Foundation’s rooftop.
It is extraordinary to see the late work of a man in his dotage
On the other hand, there is a category of Tàpies’s oeuvre that
still so obsessed with human sexuality. The exhibition covers the
falls completely flat, at least for me. Among the works currently
last 13 years of his active creative life, starting at age 75 and
on view in the galleries are several that combine found objects
ending shortly before his death at 88 earlier this year. The rear
with his more usual manipulation of paint and plaster. The pile
gallery is filled with Tàpies’s exploration of the use of latex as
of underwear that forms the lower design of one ‘painting’ looks
a medium, specifically how it mimics the colour and texture of
like a failed attempt at Sixties’ Beat assemblage, and elsewhere,
freshly ejaculated sperm (Latex Series, 1999). Elsewhere, vaginas
the inclusion of three-dimensional elements, such as black
explode with activity and at least one panel suggests, in the
cords for armpit hair, or an out-of-scale pair of panties wrapped
boldest possible visual terms, with a brown-smeared newspaper
around the leg of one of the Legs (2001) make these works looks
beneath a splayed pair of legs, scat.
amateurish. Art history will not look kindly on this kind of art school
In spite of the strength of the paintings and drawings, I
experimentation, which may come to be viewed as a decline in the
actually prefer Tàpies’s three-dimensional work, which is richly
late work of a great artist.
represented in Barcelona by installations such as his Homage to Picasso at Ciutadella park and the large over-the-entrance
Antoni Tàpies—Caps braços cames cos. Fundació Antoni
assemblage at MACBA. One of his most successful works is the
Tàpies. Until November 4th. www.fundaciotapies.org
31. Art review PDF.indd 6
8/21/12 12:39:24 PM