Today is Tàpies    is a series of conversations across generations and disciplines, led and moderated by arts journalist Rita Roig (Terrassa, 1997) and organised by the Fundació Antoni Tàpies as part of the Tàpies Centenary Year. It sets out to interpret the artist’s texts as a starting point to discuss current issues such as environmentalism, self-determination for peoples, interculturality and the political commitment of art.

The series will encourage people to think about the artist’s words and thoughts though thirteen events at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies involving people from a range of professional backgrounds (arts, education, science, politics, the environment, health and life sciences) and different generations. Altogether it will construct a polyphonic dialogue that will be recorded in podcast form thanks to cooperation with Catalunya Ràdio, in order to recover and experience the knowledge generated in a different format and a different context.

Chapter 9: Environmentalism and other directions

Tàpies wrote time and again about nature. He did so in talking about the Montseny massif in particular, to combat the degradation of this landscape he loved deeply, but every word he devoted to the Montseny actually referred to the natural environment, the life around us. For him, “The environment is a material from which all of us are committed to constructing what should be the most beautiful and delicate of our works of art: life itself.” The concern to represent the landscape, care for it and value it is a constant in Tàpies’ work, and in that of many other artists influenced by him. In this conversation, Perejaume talks to philosopher and environmentalist Marta Tafalla about the relationship between the environment and art, creation and nature and the commitment artists must have to this.