Tapta: Flexible Forms - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 377575766X ISBN 13: 9783775757669

Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2024

Synopsis

Supple sculptures

This book is a comprehensive tribute to the Polish-Belgian artist Tapta (Maria Wierusz-Kowalska). Her work transcends traditional artistic boundaries, captivating audiences with her innovative exploration of fluid spaces and dynamic interactions. Her work, an important contribution to twentieth century sculpture, is essentially divided into two major sections: the textile works of the 1960s to 1980s and the subsequent neoprene works of the last years of her life. Her practice moved away from traditional weaving through experimental techniques and evolved into three-dimensional works―first made of cords, then of neoprene sheets―that interacted with the space and the viewer.

About this title

About the Author

Tapta (*1926–1997) was born in Poland and came to Belgium as a political refugee with her husband, Krzysztof Wierusz-Kowalski, after taking part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. She studied weaving at the La Cambre National School of Visual Arts, Brussels, from where she graduated in 1949. Shortly afterwards, the couple moved to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), where they lived from 1950 to 1960. On their return to Belgium in 1960, until her sudden death in 1997, she worked in Brussels as an artist and―from 1976 until 1990―as a professor at La Cambre.

Includes texts by Sarah Van Beurden, Greet Billet, Ann Coxon, Liesbeth Decan, Marta Kowalewska, Marika Kuzmicz, Virginie Mamet, Sergio Martins, Anda Rottenberg, Camiel van Winkel.

From the Back Cover

A comprehensive survey of Tapta's oeuvre, spanning from her earlier textile works to her late neoprene works.

Installed in a loosely chronological order, the exhibition will give an overview of Tapta's oeuvre, which is mainly divided into two "periods": the textile works made in the 1960s until the early 1980s and the works in neoprene from the 1980s to 1990s.

The exhibition first focuses on Tapta's textile works, in which she steadily distanced herself from traditional weaving by applying experiment

Edition details

• Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 377575766X
• ISBN 13: 9783775757669
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Decan Liesbeth