Michel Tapie

'Un Art Autre: où il s’agit de nouveaux dévidages du réel' by Michel Tapié is not a conventional exhibition catalogue with a fixed checklist, but a manifesto + illustrated survey of what he called 'Art Informel'. Its “content” is therefore a mix of essays and a constellation of artists reproduced, cited, or discussed rather than a single formal list. Tapié’s core idea: a radical break from order, composition, and rational form, privileging gesture, material, and spontaneity.

In show more the wake of the traumatic ruptures of the Second World War, artists were moved to radically deconstruct form and create new aesthetic landscapes rooted in dynamism, vitality, and gestural freedom. Tapié became the spokesperson for this movement in his book Un art autre (1952) and its accompanying exhibition. The subtitle of his book, Où il s’agit de nouveaux dévidages du réel (“where dealing with new unwindings of the real”), encapsulates the motivating sensibility behind this drive to break with traditional notions of composition and order. By “unwinding” naturalism, figuration, and geometric form, these artists sought a visual language that might piece together a shattered world. show less

Manifeste indirect dans un temps autre (1960) is a key theoretical text by Michel Tapié, where he expands on his concept of Art Informel—a movement emphasizing spontaneity, materiality, and abstraction beyond traditional form.
Rather than listing artists in a rigid “canon,” Tapié presents a network of artists aligned with this sensibility.

The substantial monographic art book on Lucio Fontana, curated and written by Michel Tapié—published by Edizioni d’Arte Fratelli Pozzo in Turin (1961) as part of the International Center of Aesthetic Research series directed by Ezio Gribaudo.