Eduardo Chillida Research Articles

We Can Only Say What a Basque Is Not

What does it mean to be Basque, and why has this question become more complicated in the twenty-first century? An examination of several artists and their work provide possible answers to this question. American avant-garde artist Man Ray produced an experimental silent film in 1926 entitled Emak Bakia. Why he used this Basque phrase—which roughly translates as “Leave me alone”— is a mystery that has never been solved. In 2012, Basque filmmaker Oskar Alegria decided to track down the source of Ray’s inspiration in his documentary, The Search for Emak Bakia, 2012. By a strange twist of circumstance, searching for Alegria’s film turns out to be as difficult as solving the mystery of Emak Bakia. The film has never been shown in the United States, though a private copy was made available to the author of this article with the director’s permission. A Maurice Ravel musical composition and Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture in the Basque Country also help to explore this question. Together, the nuances of these collective artistic endeavors and their focus on “what is not” can suggest an alternative way to think about “what is.”

Waiting for Tindaya: Modern ruins and indigenous futures in Fuerteventura

Since the mid-1990s, the mountain of Tindaya (Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain) has been in limbo. Despite being listed as a Natural and Cultural Asset by virtue of its environmental singularity and indigenous engravings, the conservation plans have never been implemented. Instead, the state institutions designated it as the location for artist Eduardo Chillida’s Monument to Tolerance (a huge, bare cubic cave to be dug in its interior) – a controversial project that remains suspended, neither in construction nor abandoned. To complicate matters, the mountain also features three quarries, and speculation over the mining rights associated with them resulted in a long series of trials and appeals. Tindaya is therefore a site of truncated futures, fragments of which are still to be found in and around the mountain. This article works with these material traces as a way of activating the mountain’s role in a plurality of strategies of anticipation, from the economic and cultural superabundance ascribed to Chillida’s project by the state to the indigenous rituals and offerings that took place in the mountain. It is argued that Tindaya stands today as an unintended monument to the ruins of a modernity envisaged in the language of economic development and artistic abstraction, but also represents the possibility of enacting other, minoritarian futures, connected to the poorly understood indigenous lifeworlds attached to the mountain and its surroundings. The critique of the former is accompanied by the cultivation of the latter through an exercise in speculative ethnography.

More than a mountain: the contentious multiplicity of Tindaya (Fuerteventura, Canary Islands)

AbstractThe mountain of Tindaya (Fuerteventura, Canary Islands) has been surrounded by controversy since the mid‐1990s. It is, at once, a listed indigenous site, a protected natural environment, a mining resource, and the designated location of a monumental intervention by artist Eduardo Chillida, consisting in digging a grand cubic cave in its interior. This article conceptualizes Tindaya as a contentious multiplicity and analyses the mountain's competing enactments. The state's Tindaya is a ‘partitioned’ mountain, an entity split into different dimensions (cultural and natural; interior and exterior) that can be both legally protected and excavated. In contrast, activists have enacted a ‘holistic’ mountain, characterized by the inseparability of its multiple ‘values’ (archaeological, geological, environmental) and the need to protect it as a single whole. These two enactments constitute ‘worlding’ practices connected to opposing understandings of the relationship between heritage, nature, and the future. For the state, the mountain is an asset to be exploited, an opportunity to bring about prosperous futures fashioned after the spectacular projects of the metropolis. For the activists, Tindaya represents a unique opportunity to rethink the island's development model and to put indigenous heritage and environmental concerns at its centre. Tindaya's unresolved multiplicity is therefore political in the broadest sense: it is a reminder that reality can be otherwise.

As-built graphic documentation of the Monumento a la Tolerancia. Validation of low-cost survey techniques

The Monumento a la Tolerancia is an emblematic sculpture realized by Eduardo Chillida, a perfect example for the documentation of sculptures with uniform textures, non-reflective colours and with poorly elaborated shapes through the implementation of various photogrammetric tools, as well as using different applications for processing phase. The basic data are photos taken quickly and without an accurate previous study, which is why the implementation of any target was not foreseen. In order to prove the results different kind of analysis were conducted. The first type was carried out analysing the results obtained from different software, with the use of the same instrument. The second one was a comparison of the models obtained with different tools, elaborated with the same software and the last one a validation of photogrammetric model with the laser scanner one. The complete results will be presented and critically discussed to validate these tools and applications.

Monumental Suspension

More than 25 years after it was unveiled, Eduardo Chillida’sMonument to Tolerancehas been neither built nor abandoned—it is, rather, suspended. From the outset, the project, which consists in digging a vast cubic cave inside the mountain of Tindaya (Fuerteventura, Canary Islands), has faced the opposition of environmental activists, who argue that it is incompatible with the mountain’s status as a protected site. Drawing from anthropological approaches to infrastructure and art, this article unpacks the Monument’s actual existence as an unrealized project that has been partly actualized through anticipatory practices such as exhibitions and economic aspirations. The article contributes to the theorization of suspension by combining a focus on the temporal multiplicity of anticipation with an attention to the materiality of unbuilt entities.

SHINING 3D EINSCAN-PRO, APPLICATION AND VALIDATION IN THE FIELD OF CULTURAL HERITAGE, FROM THE CHILLIDA-LEKU MUSEUM TO THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF SARNO

Abstract. The following contribution focuses on the low-cost Shining 3D EinScan-Pro scanner, above all the analysis of its precision and accuracy. The need to prove the functioning of this instrumentation in practical cases (the sculptures by Eduardo Chillida preserved in the Chillida-Leku Museum and along with some artefacts collected in the Archaeological Museum of Sarno), has led to the comparison and validation of the instrument through a methodology necessarily diversified from the guideline VDI/VDE 2634, part 2 and part 3, characteristics to the test the optical 3D measuring systems with planar measurement, which works according to the triangulation principle. In particular, two types of comparisons were made: geometric-formal and metric-dimensional. The first type of analysis was carried out analysing the geometric parameters of the models, suitable for validating the information: dimensional (difference between some main measurements); superficial (total mesh extension) and of the form (that is, the discrepancies returned through a DEM analysis). The second type of analysis, instead, of the metric type, was carried out. The complete results of the various analyses will be presented and critically discussed within this contribution in order to prove the stability and the metric quality of this hand-held EinScan-Pro, following the comparison with medium-high end systems now well established in the field of cultural heritage survey.

The Joint of the Architect’s Hand

In modern day architecture practice, the role of the hand in the design process has been displaced by the advent of new technology. There is an inherent desire in practice to rely fully on the computer, which within its digital parameters removes the direct connection of the architect’s hand from the creative process. To create meaningful architecture, it is imperative to understand that the relationship of the architect’s hand in the design process is as critical as the relationship of the architectural joint to the project. To understand the hand, I approached it architecturally and rigorously studied its form and structure. At the same time, I studied several sculptors and artists, such as Richard Serra, Eduardo Chillida, Robert Morris and Eva Hesse who concentrated on the process over the final product. I created section drawings of select pieces and analyzed them with hand motions to study their forms. With these analyses, I created a material joint that explored different ways to “hold” masses and “join” different materials. With my hand analyses and material joints, I have understood the level of the “joint” at different scales: from the hand that makes the architecture to the actual structure that holds architecture together.

Sculpture and the Sense of Place

Abstract This article proposes a direction—inspired by a reading of Heidegger’s reflections on sculpture— in which thinking enriched by artistic experience can unfold an alternative mode of being-in-the-world. Heidegger points out that, in contrast to a scientific understanding of space as an empty container, the special character of space in sculpture is characterized by a clearing-away (Räumen), which presupposes and points to an open, receptive attitude toward experience that is necessary for dwelling to take place. From Heidegger this article proceeds to reflect on artworks by Eduardo Chillida and Janet Echelman. These offer concrete examples of how a thinking of sculpture can apply to different notions of place. While Chillida’s sculptures present a sense of place as rooted and embedded in the landscape, Echelman’s artworks explore an expanded notion of place through a multisensory sense of immersion. Applying Heidegger’s meditations on Räumen, it turns out that the differences between these artworks are of greatest significance in illustrating the breadth of the experiential space that they share: an openness to dwelling and a receptivity toward being-in-the-world. In this way, Heidegger’s reflections on sculpture are unfolded in a contemporary context and the potential of sculpture for a thinking of experience is established.

Material and expression – reflections on sculptures by Richard Serra and Eduardo Chillida

When considering artists from the second half of the twentieth century who used steel as material for their sculptures, Eduardo Chillida and Richard Serra are among the first to come to mind. Both artists are prominent in public spaces and both present large-size sculptures which challenge viewers. Both use clear geometrical patterns, and both develop their oeuvre from an intense involvement with the properties and possibilities of the material. However, their sculptures show fundamentally diverging conceptions not only in the manner of their creation, but also in their reception. Chillida and Serra have almost nothing in common; they never made reference to each other, although their sculptures often stand in neighbourly proximity. Nevertheless a comparison or more precisely a synopsis can illustrate a number of problems that rise in dealing with sculpture today. Serra’s works convince mostly when they concentrate on complex formal qualities resulting from constellations of geometrical forms and given spaces. However, sculptures in public space consistently have the difficult task of creating memorial places which ideally speak for themselves. Chillida’s sculptures fulfil this purpose because of their expressive pictorial potential. The material COR-TEN steel provides them with power and emphasis.

Not unlike scale models: Eduardo Chillida and architecture

Throughout his oeuvre, the artist Eduardo Chillida paid homage to architecture. He made works that give form to tasks and functions traditionally associated with architecture, such as creating a me...

‘Multiplying owners, not artworks’: some retrospective reflections on the intention and reception of Eduardo Chillida’s sculptures in public space

Cities and their spaces are changing. That is the way of things. But what will the future hold for the legacy of public art? Over the past fifteen years, debates on art in public space have once ag...

Light rooms in Tindaya Mountain and the Roden Crater: Turrell’s realization and Chillida’s proposal

Late in his life, in 1995/96, Eduardo Chillida designed a project to create a huge space in the inactive Tindaya volcano on Fuerteventura, in which visitors would be able to experience moonlight or sunlight falling in through two different lightshafts. The shafts would project the incoming light in a geometrical form into the space. Unfortunately, Chillida’s proposal could not be realized. James Turrell’s project for the Roden Crater in Arizona, however, has been built in stages since 1972. This, too, involves an inactive volcano and it is therefore instructive to compare both artists’ visions in these projects. What were Chillida’s plans and why could they not be realized? My own experiences on the Tindaya Mountain in 2018 help me to find some answers.

Espacio y tiempo en la vida humana y su experiencia en el arte. Un estudio en torno al intercambio intelectual entre Martin Heidegger y Eduardo Chillida

Martin Heidegger y Eduardo Chillida mantuvieron un rico y fértil intercambio intelectual en los años 1968 y 1969, cuando estaban preparando el libro de bibliófilo Die Kunst und der Raum («El arte y el espacio») que contendría un texto sobre el arte y el espacio, escrito por Heidegger, y siete lito-collages, además de una litografía creadas por Chillida. El artículo trata la similitud que hay entre las concepciones de espacio y tiempo del pensador alemán y del escultor vasco-español. Ambos conciben el espacio en relación con el tiempo como algo dinámico, inseparable de la vida y experiencia humana, que no está simplemente «dado», sino que hay que buscar y realizar. El punto de partida de este artículo es una circunstancia que no ha sido investigada hasta el momento: Heidegger leyó y discutió con Chillida las reflexiones sobre el espacio que éste había escrito y que le había mandado a principios de 1969 a petición suya. Al final del artículo se publican por primera vez las reflexiones de Chillida, que Heidegger usó en una traducción alemana cuando estaba preparando su texto sobre «El arte y el espacio», así como una selección más grande de reflexiones de Chillida, que el artista pudo haber mandado al filósofo, y finalmente también una página de los apuntes que Heidegger hizo sobre Chillida.

The Matter and Imagery of Air in Eduardo Chillida’s The Comb of the Wind XV

Eduardo Chillida’s The Comb of the Wind XV, embedded in natural rocks rising from the Cantabrian Ocean in 1977, expresses the artistic potential of air as a material, a metaphor, and as an art-maker. With this sculpture, Chillida opened up the possibility for air itself to show indefinite imageries. Although much has been written about this sculptural group from different perspectives, no study has been systematically undertaken to analyze it regarding the theme of the matter of air, which should be considered the core of the work of art. As Gaston Bachelard stated: ‘Chillida wished the iron [of The Comb of the Wind XV] to show aerial realities.’ Hence, this article seeks to study to what ‘aerial realities’ Chillida might refer, and the relationship between air and his artwork. First, this paper delves into the meanings and functions that air involves in Chillida’s artwork, as well as into how the sculptor embodied his poetic of air and allowed the spectator to perceive his sculptural installation with five senses. Also, the interaction between Chillida’s work and Luis Peña Ganchegui’s architectural installation La Plaza del Tenis is examined under the scope of Martin Heidegger’s notion of place. All these aspects are discussed to help readers realize why the air in natural motion is the foundation of The Comb of the Wind XV, and map the holistic imagery of air that Chillida intended to express.

De la exploración de la materia a la intuición topológica

The Greek term technee refers to both “craftsmanship” and “art” as we use these terms nowadays. Therefore technites is both the craftsman and the artist. We must specify that the craftsman side of Aristotle’s technites designates someone who knows the causes, for example the distinctive traits of the materials with which he works. We all know how Eduardo Chillida would only venture to explore materials with an outmost respect of their internal structure, density, resistence… always mindful of the spectrum of their posible forms, beginning by their metamorphic potentiality. But from his observation of matter and his fidelity to the essence of each material, Eduardo Chillida gets to extraordinary conclusions in relation to the link itself between matter and space, conclusions that make of him a sort of intuitive non-Euclidean geometer. At this he is like a physician that starting with experimentation ends up cuestioning the very foundations of the world in which experimentation takes place.

"Chillidaren etxea" (La casa de Chillida): un muro de piedra como elemento generador de Chillida-Leku

Throughout his professional career, Eduardo Chillida has paid homage to many different personalities in the world of culture, at all times highlighting some aspect that he himself and the person in question shared. He paid tribute to Jorge Guillén through verse, which reads “Deep is the air”, to Calder, through a giant hanging sculpture and to Miró by speaking about concavity and convexity. I understand that in the work carried out on the Zabalaga farmhouse the sculptor succeeded in making his own house: ‘Chillida’s House’. The raw material is a typical traditional Basque house, a stone box with a wooden interior. The process consists of taking away elements instead of adding on, so that a void is created in the interior. And the result is a house that speaks of space, of light, of matter and above all, of limits.

Consideraciones sobre el lugar: la regla y el modelo. De Igueldo a Zabalaga / Igeldotik Zabalagara

The present text approaches the work of sculptor Eduardo Chillida from a two folded point of view. On one hand, it states that the sculpture of Chillida builds places, which is argued through the exploration of the meaning of words place and space. On the other hand, it points to the close relationship that can be found between the concepts of rule, model and paradigm and the singular work of sculpture. Both threads lead to the final conclusion: the sculptures of Chillida, especially the ones in open spaces like the Peine del viento or those in Chillida-Leku, propose themselves as a paradigm that, in each particular situation, give place to the place.

Chillida y Ullán re-escriben el libro (en) blanco: "Adoración"

The aim of this article is to release Adoración (Libro Blanco), an Artist´s Book conceived by José-Miguel Ullán in collaboration with Eduardo Chillida 1977. The study of the personal and creative life circumstances of each of the co-authors in the period when the Book was published, along with the analysis of its context, format and content, lead us to the texts: ¡Adentro! by Unamuno and Haschisch by Benjamin, and sheds some light on this complex project whose meaning still holds many questions. In addition, the artwork offers a new perspective on some key concepts of Chillida´s creative universe –and on the graphic one in particular– such as the idea of Artist’s Book, the value of white color in the work on paper, the symbolism of the hand and the relevance of religion.

Urban tellurics in Barcelona: Between a Heideggerian rock and a postmodern swimming pool

Abstract This article reflects on the possibility of resisting globalization by relying on some sense of the local as found in public art and public space. The term ‘urban tellurics’ explores how the notion of the tellurics of place, which I derive from Heidegger’s thinking and from Kenneth Frampton’s proposal for a Critical Regionalist architecture of resistance, interacts with the reality of endless urbanization within global capitalism. To articulate this relation, I focus on a singular public space in Barcelona, the Parc de la Creueta del Coll, designed in 1987 by the architectural firm MBM. The park was ‘sculpted’ on the slopes of a former stone quarry and includes a sculpture by Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida that hangs above a swimming pool. Heidegger considered Chillida’s work the most precise embodiment of his thought on art and space. Thus, focusing on the tension between the telluric elements of the park and the flat surface of the swimming pool provides a good occasion to reflect on the contradictions between Heideggerian rootedness and the flatness of capitalist globalization. ‘Urban tellurics’ aims to enable forms of spatial resistance that are neither reactionary returns to the provinces, nor mere celebrations of city diversity, nor simple manifestations of political struggle.

Edmond Jabès y Eduardo Chillida: "La mémoire et la Main"

Several aspects of the work La Memoire et la Main , fruit of the collaboration between Edmond Jabes and Eduardo Chillida are the object of our study. I aim to analyze the process of its editions, from the publication of the first poem in Orange Export Ltd. to the appearance of a second edition in 1987 published by Fata Morgana with a simplified reproduction of the etchings. Basing my findings primarily on the 1986 edition, I examine the format (paper, binding) and the mise en page (typography, page layout, etc.), with a particular analytical emphasis on the illustrations. I attempt to locate the connections between the domain of the etchings and the content of the text so as to consider the aesthetic functionality of the diverse elements of the book and their connections with one another.