BRUSSELS.- Almine Rech is now part of the galleries representing the Estate of Antoni Tąpies. The first exhibition with the gallery will take place in Brussels in March 2020.

From the 1940s, Antoni Tąpies (b. 1923, Barcelona; d. 2012, Barcelona) has developed a strong visual language through a wide range of sources that coalesce into a complex fusion of materials, gestures, and symbols. Co-founder of the magazine Dau al Set in 1948, and influenced by Miró and Klee, he became increasingly interested in iconographic and magical subjects. He gradually began to incorporate geometrical elements and colour studies leading to an interest in matter through the use of heavily textured canvases of great expressive and communicative possibilities. Tąpies achieved international recognition by the mid-1950s. In the 1960s, he began incorporating new iconographic elements (writing, signs, anthropomorphic elements, footprints and references to the Catalan situation), and new technical methods (new surfaces, use of everyday objects and varnish). Tąpies’ pictorial language has continued to develop ever since, resulting in a creative and productive body of work in painting, sculpture, and assemblage, that is admired throughout the world.

Important solo exhibitions include retrospectives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1962 and 1995); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1973); Nationalgalerie, Berlin (1974); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, which later traveled to Chicago, San Antonio, Iowa, and Montreal (1977); and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofķa, Madrid (1990). In 1990 he was awarded with Premio Prķncipe de Asturias de las Artes, followed by the Praemium Imperiale Award from Japan. Tąpies has participated in three Venice Biennale exhibitions (1952, 1954, 1958) prior to being selected to represent Spain at the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993, during which he won the Award Golden Lion. In 2013 Tąpies was the subject of a series of major museum surveys: Contra Tąpies and Tąpies: Des de l’interior at the Fundació Antoni Tąpies, the latter in collaboration with MNAC Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya; TĄPIES: The eye of the artist, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice coinciding with the Venice Biennale; and Antoni Tąpies: From Object to Sculpture, 1964– 2009, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Spain. His work is included in numerous public and private collections internationally including Tate Galleries, UK; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome; Le Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In parallel to his artistic production, Tąpies is also the author of numerous publications: La prąctica de l’art (1970), L’art contra l’estčtica (1974), Memņria personal (1977), La realitat com a art (1982), Per un art modern i progressista (1985), Valor de l’art (1993) and L’art i els seus llocs (1999).