Tàpies en Zabalaga © Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona - Vegap. Photos ©Alex Abril

In the Zabalaga country house estate located in Hernani (Guipúzcoa), near San Sebastián, Chillida Leku has inaugurated the first exhibition of its program of artists other than Chillida. On view through 10 January 2022, it presents small and large works, mostly sculptures, that Antoni Tàpies (1923-2012) completed in the 1980 and 1990s. Curated by Chillida Leku director Mireia Massaqué, the temporary exhibition establishes a dialogue with the historical legacy of the Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), pointing out similarities and differences between the two. Many of the Tàpies sculptures on show are made of fireclay. In 1981 the Catalan artist began to explore the potential of this technique in the workshop of the ceramist Hans Spinner, and in that period he received several invitations to work in the ceramics workshop of the gallerist Aimé Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence (France). Eduardo Chillida, having discovered this material in those same ovens, urged Tàpies to accept the invitation and encouraged him to work with fireclay. It was then that he began creating pieces with baked clay. Several parallelisms are drawn, and so it is that the bond between Tàpies and Chillida is sealed in the theoretical sphere as well.

Tàpies en Zabalaga © Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona - Vegap. De las fotografias ©Alex Abril