Michel Tapié

Michel Tapié (1909–1987) was a French art critic, curator, and theorist who played a significant role in shaping the landscape of postwar and contemporary art.

Tapié formulated the term art autre to describe a new form of postwar abstraction in his eponymous publication. Art autre named a way of making art that rejected rules and fixed systems, emphasising instead spontaneity, gesture, materiality and process.His ideas were articulated in his influential book Un art autre (1952), which helped establish the theoretical framework for Art Informel. Tapié shaped the discourse around postwar abstraction and influenced a distinctly European reception of American Abstract Expressionism, helping to contextualize artists such as Joan Mitchell.

 Tapié was particularly influential as a conduit between artistic scenes in France and internationally. He organised numerous salons that brought together diverse groups of artists and writers. Aesthetically, he was a promoter of Tachism, through his critical writing and his role as advisor to Jean Larcade, the founder of Galerie Rive Droite, which notably exhibited Sam Francis and Riopelle, Mitchell’s partner. Tapié acted as an “agent” for artists through his positions at galleries like Facchetti, Rive Droite, or Galerie Stadler. Tapié also participated in numerous livres d’artiste and book-based collaborations.

In 1949, he was responsible for the typographic layout of Janela do Caos (Window of Chaos), a collaboration between Francis Picabia and Murilo Mendes. In the same year, he produced an original linocut to accompany a visual poem by Henri Michaux, Poésie pour pouvoir. In 1964 he collaborated with Falkenstein on the book and Berto Morucchio on the bilingual livre d’artiste, Struttura grafica.