Tàpies’ Chairs: Biel Mesquida

Credit: Biel Mesquida as seen by Jean Marie del Moral

Tàpies’ Chairs is a season of multidisciplinary sound actions organised as part of the Tàpies Centenary Year at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in collaboration with the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. It focuses on the voice and the word as a means of accompanying oral memory through sound. Each of the thirteen sessions will be led by an artist who will use the chair as a performative element to reconnect with Tàpies’ creative universe through original expressive languages and contemporary stagings.

Biel Mesquida presents the third chair, entitled Textures: Ode for Antoni Tàpies: “I shall sing a thousand and one shortcuts to the invisible world that underpins Tàpies’ work—through rhythms and harmonies I have learnt from his thick layers and thin threads, his colourations and interweavings, his alloys and graffiti… I shall speak with all my soul of his blossoming exploits in the realms of fragility and risk, in the atmospheres of invention and whispers, in the murmurings of matter resurrected by him, as well as far more besides. With winged calligraphies and a user’s gratitude I shall write the entire forest of signs that have opened the doors of my perception. It will be my act of thanksgiving for Antoni Tàpies!”

Biel Mesquida is a writer, biologist, critic and reader with a keen interest in the languages of art and science. His early novels, L’adolescent de sal (1973) and El bell país on els homes desitgen els homes (1974), offered fresh perspectives amid the bleak and desolate landscape of Catalan literature. He coordinated the science and medicine section of the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana (1972–1980) and was head of communication and publishing at the Universitat de les Illes Balears (1982–2011). His books, especially Excelsior o el temps escrit, Vertígens, Els detalls del món, Llefre de tu, Carpe momentum and Encarnacions, are noted for their highly original and engaging use of language, conjuring up stirring musical rhythms. He is a regular contributor to numerous media outlets and has run the Festival de Poesia de la Mediterrània since setting it up in 1999.