Michel Tapié
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Michel Tapié (Michel Tapié de Céleyran, 1909-1987) an internationally active French critic, curator, and collector of art, as well as an important artist in his own right, was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism. Tapié was from a very old and aristocratic French family, and he was also a second cousin ("petit-cousin") of the painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
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[edit] Art of another kind
Michel Tapié's 1952 book (sometimes referred to and anthologized as an "essay") entitled Un art autre, most commonly rendered in English as "Art of Another Kind", was immensely influential in establishing a European approach to and embrace of what in the U.S. is generally termed abstract expressionism, and especially the subgenres of action painting and lyrical abstraction. "L'art informel" was Tapié's general term for art reflecting the sensibility described in his book. Also in 1952, Tapié curated Jackson Pollock’s first solo exhibition in Paris, which took place at the Studio Paul Facchetti (see Tapié's seminally influential essay/catalogue below).
According to the Guggenheim Collection's art-historical glossary entry on "l'art informel" (see External links), Tapié, in his 1952 book, "was trying to define a tendency in postwar European painting that he saw as a radical break with all traditional notions of order and composition —including those of Modernism.... He used the term Art Informel (from the French informe, meaning unformed or formless) to refer to the antigeometric, antinaturalistic, and nonfigurative formal preoccupations of these artists, stressing their pursuit of spontaneity, looseness of form, and the irrational.... Artists who became associated with Art Informel include Enrico Donati, Lucio Fontana, Asger Jorn, Emil Schumacher, Kazuo Shiraga, Antoni Tàpies, and Jiro Yoshihara." [1]
[edit] Globe-trotting promoter of modern art
In 1960, with architect Luigi Moretti, Tapié co-founded the International Center of Aesthetic Research in Turin, Italy, a facility for the study and exhibition of art, as well as for the publication and dissemination of critical, investigative, or theoretical works on art. It also houses a museum with a permanent collection of modern and contemporary art. Tapié organized and curated scores of exhibitions of new and modern art in major cities all over the world, including not only Paris and Turin but also New York, Rome, Tokyo, Munich, Madrid, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires, Milan, and Osaka. He was also an advisor to many galleries in Europe, Latin America, and Japan.
[edit] Quotation
"In the words of Saint John of the Cross, 'To reach the unknown, you must pass through the unknown.' Academicism--finished for good, isn't it?"
- from Michel Tapié's Un art autre ("Art of Another Kind", 1952), as quoted (in translation) in Art of our century (1988), page 495 (see 'References" section below).
[edit] See also
- Tachisme
- Abstract expressionism
- Action painting
- Lyrical abstraction
- Elaine Hamilton
- Gutai (Japanese)
[edit] References
- Chipp, Herschel B.. Theories of modern art; a source book by artists and critics (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1968)
- Le Pichon, Yann ; and Jean Louis Ferrier. Art of our century : the chronicle of western art, 1900 to the present [Walter D. Glanze, English translation] (New York : Prentice Hall Editions, 1989) ISBN 0130116440 : 9780130116444 9780130116444 0130116440 [contains extensive material concerning Tapié's Un Art Autre" (1952)]
- Tapié, Michel. Un art autre où il s'agit de nouveaux dévidages du réel (Paris, Gabriel-Giraud et fils, 1952) OCLC 1110556
- Antoni Tàpies and Michel Tapié. Antonio Tapies [sic], New York, G. Wittenborn, 1959. OCLC 1090149 [Note: this Worldcat listing gives the painter's first name as "Antonio" in the title, also omitting the accent mark in the surname. Despite the similar surnames, the two men were unrelated.]
- Tapié, Michel; Paul Jenkins; Esther Jenkins. Observations [2] (New York, G. Wittenborn, 1956) OCLC 1127301
- Tapié, Michel. Hans Hofmann : peintures 1962 : 23 avril-18 mai 1963. (Paris: Galerie Anderson-Mayer, 1963.) [exhibition catalogue and commentary] OCLC: 62515192
- Tapié, Michel. Pollock (Paris, P. Facchetti, 1952) OCLC: 30601793
[edit] External links
- COLOR IMAGE of a Michel Tapié painting (via an auction record at artnet.de)
- Information on Michel Tapié at www.the-artists.org
- Worldcat search on Michel Tapié, showing the prodigious number of his exhibition catalogues and books still to be found in many libraries
- Guggenheim collection: art-historical glossary entry elucidating the term "art informel"
- Guggenheim Museum Pollock bio mentioning his first Paris show in 1952
- L'exposition "Tapié: un art autre": Information on 1997 Tapié exhibition in Toulouse, France, including biographical information mentioning his distinguished family and his second-cousinship relation to the painter Toulouse-Lautrec: "L'exposition "Tapié, un art autre, parcourt, dix ans après la mort du théoricien et critique d'art, Michel Tapié de Celeyran (Mauriac 1909-Paris 1987), petit-cousin du peintre Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec et descendant des comtes de Toulouse, l'activité internationale du promoteur de l'art Informel à travers le rapprochement d'artistes européens, américains et japonais, tels que Hofmann, Tobey, Kline, Francis, Dubuffet, Fautrier, Mathieu, Wols, Tapiès [sic], Hartung, Capogrossi, Fontana, Burri, Accardi, les Lettristes français, Domoto, Arai, Imai, Onishi, Suzuki, Teshigahara et le groupe Gutaï." [Please note: this source misplaces the accent mark in the last name of Antoni Tàpies, who is not related to Michel Tapié].
- Italian Wikipedia article on architect Luigi Moretti (known best in the U.S. as the designer of the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C.)
