Reopening of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies
March 2010
Aragó 255
08007 Barcelona
The Fundació Antoni Tàpies closed its doors to the public in January 2008 to carry out an architectural renovation of the building. This renovation, by the firm of architects Ábalos+Sentkiewicz, has adapted the building to the new safety and evacuation regulations, and made it possible to meet the full needs of disabled people. The exhibition spaces have also been renewed in order to recuperate the industrial character of the building, while the entrance to the museum has been changed to improve the areas of reception and bookshop. The reform also includes the recuperation of the second floor of the museum (where the offices were) for public use, in order to create new spaces for activities and museum services (educational activities, archive and documentation space, multidisciplinary room, etc.), as well as being able to initiate new strands of programming.
For two months after the reopening of the Fundació, it will be possible to consult all the documentation on the architectural renovation of the building, its transformation into a centre of work, production and exhibition where all the spaces, programmes and processes are linked and interrelated. Together with this space for consultation, the Fundació will offer guided visits to the building’s renovation.
Antoni Tàpies. The Places of Art
The Fundació Antoni Tàpies will reopen with Antoni Tàpies. The Places of Art, an exhibition that includes works realised by the artist in the last twenty years (to coincide with the two decades of existence of the Fundació), and a selection of earlier works acting as counterpoints (namely works from the mid-forties) that can be seen as the seeds for his later production. The exhibition will also include a selection of works from the artist’s private collection, a fragment of what he himself has named his ‘manifesto’ and his ‘museum’ [Antoni Tàpies, El arte y sus lugares (The Places of Art), Madrid: Siruela, 1999]. This selection includes works ranging from Egyptian art to modern Western art, from ritual objects to scientific books, which are not only the habitat of the artist but are also linked to his particular way of conceiving art, and represent a heterodox questioning of its origins, history and meaning. The selection brings together pieces that have rarely, if ever, been seen in an exhibition space.
Activities around the Exhibition
Coinciding with the exhibition Antoni Tàpies. The Places of Art, the Fundació offers a range of activities to help discover or rediscover some of the creative forms that have accompanied Tàpies’ aesthetic and ethical evolution, from cinema or music to writing. In this case, as well as guided visits, there will be a selection of films by Georges Méliès (1861–1938), one of the many filmmakers included in Tàpies’ private film collection; the concert String Quartet No. 2, a six-hour piece by Morton Feldman (1926–1987); the presentation of the first volume of Tàpies’ written works, A Personal Memoir. Fragments for an Autobiography (Complete Writings. Volume I), published in Catalan, Spanish and English; and a conversation between Uwe Fleckner and Juan José Lahuerta (‘Primitive and Contemporary. The Collection of the Artist’) that will help to analyse Tàpies’ facet as a collector.
Press material
In the press section of the Fundació’s web page there is published graphic material and illustrations related to the reopening of the Fundació, available for journalistic purposes.
Direct link to the graphic material and illustrations related to the reopening:
www.fundaciotapies.org/site/spip.php?article6326&var_mode=calcul
Press Department: Alexandra Laudo
Tel.: 934 870 315 / Fax: 934 870 009
press@ftapies.com / www.fundaciotapies.org
