(Barcelona 1923–2012)
Bloc, 1983, dead-burned fireclay, 18 x 19 x 30 cm

Provenance:
Galerie Maeght Lelong, Paris
Private Collection, Europe

Exhibited:
Zurich, Galerie Maeght Lelong, Tàpies. Sculptures, June – July 1984, cat. no. 32, ill.

Literature:
Anna Agusti, Tàpies, Obra Completa, 1982–1985, vol. 5, no. 4579, ill.

This is one of Tàpies’s most important sculptures, created in collaboration with Hans Spinner in the studio of Gardy Artigas de Gallifa. “The use of chamotte clay permits the construction of massive shapes that can be baked at high temperatures in a wood-fired Japanese tunnel oven, without cracking. The sculptures created with this procedure are unique items. Creating a bronze cast from them, as is often the case with clay or terracotta sculptures, would contradict their special nature. This is also because Tàpies does not create sculptures in the sense of a spacial construct, but shapes them as physical mass, as a lump of matter, in which he not only intervenes plastically, that is kneading and shaping, but also covering them with drawings and painted inscriptions. In addition to this, he employs the unpredictable effects of chemical reactions during the firing process. The aforementioned figurative alchemy is directly incorporated here, in the guise of a chemical process, in the artist’s aesthetic formulations. His stoneware objects were produced in their entirety in the ceramic workshop of the most famous Catalan potter, Artigas, in Barcelona, where Miró also created his ceramic works before him. The fact that Tàpies managed to deal so skilfully with this difficult, complex technique and to integrate surprising effects into his work without losing control of them, is due to his close cooperation – which went well beyond the limits of an ‘apprenticeship’ – with the experienced potter and ceramist, Hans Spinner.”
Jörn Merkert: Die Verrätselten Dinge – zu den Skulpturen von Antoni Tàpies, in: Tàpies. Sculptures, Lelong Gallery, Zurich, exhibition catalogue