Hernani (Gipuzkoa), Mar 30 (EFE).- The monumental 13-ton concrete sculpture “Meeting Point IV” by Eduardo Chillida “gravitates” from today on in the wooded area that surrounds the Zabalaga farmhouse in Chillida Leku. In this enclave, it shares space with other works by the Gipuzkoan sculptor and shows his connection with the industrial world and with nature.
Monumental sculpture in Chillida Leku
The new location of the work has been presented this Thursday. The Minister of Culture, Bingen Zupiria, and the Provincial Councilor for Culture, María José Tellería, took part in the event. The director of Loire Gestamp, César Garbalena, and the strategy director of Teknalia, Agustín Sáenz, also took part. These two companies have participated in the transfer of the sculpture.
The piece was removed on March 3 from its location in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. It has remained in these facilities since Chillida donated it in 1982. The transfer took place after the commission that the Gipuzkoan town of Azpeitia had made for it did not go ahead and it rested in the warehouse where it was made.
Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
Chillida Leku’s installation in the fields is a project of this Biscayan museum.
The operation will allow the sculpture to be contemplated in a natural environment while the expansion works of the Museum of Fine Arts are carried out, scheduled for 2024.
“Meeting Place IV”, made in 1973, is part of a series of seven works designed to be installed in public places. All the pieces are made of concrete, except for two, which were made of corten steel and wood, and which the Gipuzkoan sculptor worked in collaboration with the civil engineer, José Antonio Fernández Ordóñez.
Steel wires
Framed within the Zero Gravity program, the piece hangs from steel cables in a metal structure. In this way, it rises a few centimeters from the ground so that the forcefulness of its lines is suspended in the open space.
Its location in Chillida Leku, surrounded by forest and the greenery of the soil, highlights the forcefulness of the work. The relationship with the industrial world that the sculptor always maintained is evident.
“It has been a thing of fate that, coinciding with the centenary celebration in 2024, the Fine Arts was under construction and Chillida Leku was able to host this piece, the only concrete one on display”, Luis Chillida pointed out.
thirteen tons of concrete
“It has been a somewhat crazy mission to suspend 13 tons of concrete on steel cables, but we have been lucky to have the collaboration of the companies”, Luis Chillida pointed out.
The transfer operation, of great complexity, has been the result of the collaboration of institutions and technology centers such as Tecnalia. This institution has designed the structure from which the piece hangs.
Agustín Sáez has defined the project with the words “courage, generosity and identity”. He has remarked that it reflects the concept of “meeting” that gives the work its title because it is a reflection of the collaboration and participation of different elements such as art, engineering, concrete and iron”.
The museum prepares a publication. The book includes a text on sculpture by Miriam Alzuri, curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. It also includes an excerpt from the text by José Antonio Fernández Ordóñez in response to Chillida’s speech when she entered the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1994.