Josep Grau-Garriga

JOSEP GRAU-GARRIGA (Barcelona, 1928- Angers, 2011).
Untitled.
Tapestry.

An essential figure in the renewal of contemporary textile art, Josep Grau-Garriga transformed the tapestry into an autonomous means of expression, charged with material-expressive intensity and symbolic content. In this work, the surface is articulated as a dense and organic field dominated by a large central form of telluric character, crossed by a horizontal strip that introduces an axis of tension within the composition.

The thick fibers, knots, reliefs and frayed areas are not mere formal resources, but active elements of meaning. The fabric becomes territory: a surface where time, gesture and memory are inscribed. This physical and almost bodily dimension brings his work close to both material painting and sculpture.

In dialogue with European informalism and with artists such as Antoni Tàpies, Grau-Garriga develops a language where matter acts as a vehicle of expression. The tapestry ceases to be a support to assert itself as an object with its own presence, expanding into space and acquiring an almost architectural dimension.

Grau-Garriga took the tapestry genre to its limits, conceiving it as a volume in space and even exploring the expressiveness of its traditionally hidden reverse side. His research during the sixties and seventies promoted the so-called Catalan School of Tapestry and placed his work in a context of dialogue with artists like Miró, Tàpies or Picasso in the environment of Sant Cugat. His international projection was consolidated with milestones such as his retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston (1970) and his intervention in the Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City in 1987, where he created a monumental work linked to the social context of the time.