Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies (Catalan: [ənˈtɔni ˈtapi.əs]; 13 December 1923 – 6 February 2012) was a Spanish painter, sculptor and art theorist.[1] (wikipedia)
At lucky moments this emanation could overwhelm the spectator in such a way, that because of all sorts of associations in his thinking, he could finally be taken to those areas which also had moved me so deeply and made me think I should draw the attention of others to it.
I feel the desire, or rather the intense need, to do something useful for society, and that is what stimulates me. In every situation I always look for what is positive and beneficial for my fellow citizens.
The material presence of the work only serves as a conveyer launching an invitation to the observer to take part of the comprehensive game of the thousand and one emotions and visions.
An image means nothing. It is just a door, leading to the next door. It will never happen that we will find the truth we are looking for just in an image; it will happen behind the last door that the spectator discovers the truth, because of his own efforts.
Which country is real, mine or the teacher's? My wish is that we might progressively lose our confidence in what we think we believe and the things we consider stable and secure, in order to remind ourselves of the infinite number of things still waiting to be discovered.
The dramatic sufferings of adults and all the cruel fantasies of those of my own age, who seemed abandoned to their own impulses in the midst of so many catastrophes, appeared to inscribe themselves on the walls around me.
My illusion is to have something to transmit. If I can't change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it.
Obviously, the intention was not to go back to images traditionally valued as worthy or holy images and shapes, but exactly the opposite; its main purpose had to be to realise as sacred art, anything which so far had been regarded as of little value and pitiful.
They were wrestling with canvases, using violent colors and huge brush strokes. I arrived with gray, silent, sober, oppressed paintings. One critic said they were paintings that thought.
I never view aesthetic ideas as having an existence purely of their own but as a function they have in connection with political or moral values.