This exposition of work by Antoni Tàpies, at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, covered the period 1966 to 1976 when his work took on a social and political tone.
Tàpies’ “pile of plates” [Pila de Plats (1970)] reminds me of “The Bricks” [Carl Andre, Equivalent VIII (1966)]. Hard to read unless you know the backstory, viz, the Pila de Plats recalled the events of the Caputxinada. In 1966, from March 9 to 11, the Democratic Students Union of the University of Barcelona held the constituent assembly at Caputxinada: a siege developed between the 450 students, teachers, and intellectuals at the assembly and the police who wanted to evict them, and this event helped unite the political and civic arms of the struggle against Franco and eventually to the Assembly of Catalonia.
