Art of another kind | Michel Tapié

ONCE IT IS ACCEPTED that in art the actuality of a certain period amounts to a few highly individualized general lines, which mean that such and such a style is unexpectedly recognized, it seems to us that, for aficionados worthy of the name, the especially exciting points are, rather than those common features, the profound differences existing between Individual and Individual, all the more so when it involves the period in which we happen to live, with its pioneers and the ineluctable necessities it brings.

 

So, then, nothing can be as efficacious and, therefore, as explicit as a confrontation at an international level of authentic individuals who at the same time feel and do what is of the Now.

 

[…] The outcome of this confrontation, in 1957, is already of such importance that it is possible to think of the elaboration of an “other” aesthetic which might correspond in turn to “other” structural and psychic needs.

The “Dada” movement has permanently liquidated the extremely glorious era of a classicism that produced unprecedented masterworks for more than 2,500 years. Ever since 1943, and in every latitude, absolutely “other” artworks have been created, ones which ineluctably march alongside all the similarly “other” notions of modern science and philosophy. […] Today, we are very pleased to attest to this “other” art in the land of Gaudí, Picasso, Miró and Dalí, without whom that shift from one structural force to another, which now resides marvellously in us, would not have been effected.

 

Chance has nothing to do with the fact that an Homage to Gaudí goes hand in hand with the works of Antonio Tàpies. In the century of generalised form, a likewise geographically generalized art has some extraordinary surprises in store for us.

 

Henceforth we can say that in Spain, where the Individual always attains his highest pitch, he participates to a superlative degree in the great Adventure of Art at the dawn of a totally “other” era.

 

Art of Another Kind by Michel Tapié. Galerie Stadler / Sala Gaspar (Paris, January 1957). [Excerpt]

 

Published in With rebellion, awareness is born. Barcelona, 2018. Mayoral. p. 21 – 22