Still Tàpies
Encounter with Manuel Borja-Villel and Poetry Recital
Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior registration via email
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This encounter sets forth a journey through the exhibition Antoni Tàpies. The Practice of Art, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía and Fundació Antoni Tàpies in conjunction with the hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth. The tour, conducted by curator Manuel Borja-Villel, punctuates aspects that make Antoni Tàpies (Barcelona, 1923–2012) a key artist for the present and culminates in a poetry recital — selected and read by Alfonso Alegre Heitzmann and Victoria Pradilla — on the relationships between the Catalan artist and poetic writing. The multifarious origins of the chosen writings (from Ramon Llull to Japanese haikus via José Ángel Valente and María Zambrano) give a sense of the artist’s vast aesthetic world.
The visit, moreover, focuses on the constant presence of Tàpies, often situated in the post-war Informalist movement, in the progression of contemporary art. For instance: the artist’s relationship with the speculative and animist qualities of matter, on which the contemporary philosophy of new materialisms has a bearing; his dialogue with magical and esoteric thought, with the contemporary idea of reenchanting the world underlying it, present in artistic endeavours in close proximity to shamanism; and the necessity of his work to decolonise Western thought, drawing on Oriental mysticism and other forms of non-rational thought.
Participants
Alfonso Alegre Heitzmann is a poet, essayist and editor. He is the co-founder and co-director, with Victoria Pradilla, of the journal and editorial project of art and poetry Rosa Cúbica, and a co-founder of the Spanish-Portuguese journal Hablar/Falar de Poesía. He has carried out part of his poetry work in dialogue with painters such as Antoni Tàpies, Albert Ràfols-Casamada, Maria Girona and Vicente Rojo, and as a poet has published La luz con el tiempo dentro (Cifr, 1993), Sombra y materia (La forma de la luz) (Rosa Cúbica, 1995), La luz en la ventana (Rosa Cúbica, 2001), La flor en lo oscuro (El Gato Gris, 2003) and Agón. Contemplación de Antoni Tàpies (Rosa Cúbica, 2008).
Manuel Borja-Villel is an art historian and curator. He holds a PhD, obtained in 1989, from the City University of New York (CUNY), with a thesis on Antoni Tàpies, and is the curator of the exhibition Antoni Tàpies. The Practice of Art. He was director of Fundació Antoni Tàpies from 1990 to 1998, the Museu d’art contemporani de Barcelona MACBA from 1998 to 2008 and the Museo Reina Sofía from 2008 to 2023. With Marcelo Expósito, he published the work Conversación con Manuel Borja-Villel (Ediciones Turpial, 2015), running through his broad professional trajectory, and is the author of Campos magnéticos. Escritos sobre arte y política (Arcadia, 2020).
Victoria Pradilla is an editor, essayist and translator. She is the co-founder and co-director, with Alfonso Alegre Heitzmann, of the journal and editorial project of art and poetry Rosa Cúbica, and a co-founder of the Spanish-Portuguese journal Hablar/Falar de Poesía. From 2001 to 2007, she co-directed the Benteveo collection of short stories from the Sirpus publishing house. She has also worked as a coordinator, editor, translator and copy-editor for an array of publishers, and has collaborated in catalogues from institutions such as Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica and La Virreina Centre de la Imatge.
