Antoni Tapies Quotes
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With my work I attempt to help man to overcome his alienation; I do this by surrounding his daily life with objects, which confront him in a tactile way with the final and deepest problems of our existence. I want the means that I employ to create the necessary stimulus to be as direct as possible. Instead of giving a sermon on humility, I often prefer to depict humility itself.
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I feel the desire, or rather the intense need, to do something useful for society, and that is what stimulates me. In every situation I always look for what is positive and beneficial for my fellow citizens.
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The artist has to make the viewer understand that his world is too narrow, he has to open up to new perspectives.
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My activities have never had anything to do with the idea of becoming famous or achieving success. I have always been concerned with getting people to listen to me. In everything I do ... my aim is to make people listen. I want to communicate the things that I love and in which I believe, because I think that people can derive a general benefit from them. What I really want is success in a philosophical sense: I want people to grasp something of the ideas and hopes which I express in painting.
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My illusion is to have something to transmit. If I can't change the world, at least I want to change the way people look at it.
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The material presence of the work only serves as a conveyer launching an invitation to the observer to take part of the comprehensive game of the thousand and one emotions and visions.
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Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life.
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Starting with approaching the spot where the painting is to be done, meanwhile realising the emptiness of the mind, up to the method of 'the flying white', of the rule of the singular stroke of the brush... there is a proper tradition in which the artist is fully aware of the fact that only the pure and empty spontaneity enables him to embrace without hesitating all apparitions and to truly penetrate into the roots of things.