Eduardo Chillida Book Lab

26 Jun - 3 Jan 2022

Somerset

‘My sculpture ‘Peine del viento’ is the solution of an equation which instead of numbers has the elements: the sea, the wind, the cliffs, the horizon and the light. The steel shapes mingle with the strengths and aspects of nature, they engage in dialogue with them; they are questions and affirmations. Perhaps they are there to symbolize the Basques and their country, located between two extremes, the point where the Pyrenees end and where the Ocean begins.’ —Eduardo Chillida

About

This Book Lab shares the story of Eduardo Chillida’s most important work, ‘Comb of the Wind (Peine del viento)’ sited in his native city of Donostia, San Sebastián, Spain. Eduardo Chillida created ‘Comb of the Wind’ in collaboration with the Basque architect Luis Peña Ganchegui. For both, this is one of their most significant works that unites art, architecture, industry and engineering. The resulting work of art is a series of granite terraces with three solid Corten steel shapes anchored onto the rocks. Situated at one of the edges of the bay at the base of Mount Igueldo the sculpture is placed in constant dialogue with the sea and natural elements. A system with holes allows the waves to gush up in high columns and emits a sound. The work was gifted by Chillida to the people of San Sebastián.

The Hauser & Wirth Book Lab is a project devoted to exploring the important place that books and prints occupy in the practice of artists. Building upon Hauser & Wirth’s curatorial and publishing activities, the Book Lab presents thematic installations, displays, and programming that invite reflection, creative thinking, and further conversation about the world of printed matter and its connection to artists’ ideas and objectives.

[1] Eduardo Chillida. Writings. Madrid: La Fábrica, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2019. p.78

Installation views

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About the Artist

With a varied and pioneering practice that spans small-scale sculpture, plaster work, drawing, engraving and collage, Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida is best known for his prominent monumental public sculptures, mostly displayed in Spain, Germany, France and the USA. Throughout his career, Chillida drew on his Spanish heritage combined with a fascination for organic form, as well as influences from European and Eastern philosophies, poetry and history, to develop an artistic voice that communicated and resonated with a continent undergoing rapid transformation. Originally a student of architecture, Chillida created art guided by its principles. His formally rigorous constructions in oxidised iron are imbued with tension and poise. Chillida’s contribution towards Spain’s postwar artistic reputation and his personal legacy endure through his work and also through the Foundation which he set up in 2000. In the same year, Chillida opened Chillida Leku, an exhibition space and sculpture park converted from the historic Zabalaga farmhouse in the town of Hernani, near San Sebastian.

Chillida was born in San Sebastian, Spain in 1924. He conducted preliminary studies to enroll in architecture at the University of Madrid before turning his attention to drawing which he studied at Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. In 1948 Chillida was awarded a scholarship to attend the Cité Internationale Universitaire and travelled to Paris. On his return to Spain in 1951, he began experimenting in materials that resonated with the Basque region’s industrial heritage such as iron, wood and steel. Chillida settled in Hernani and, in 1952, he set up an iron foundry, learning techniques from a local blacksmith. During this period he continued to make engravings and collages and this core practice was to continue throughout his career, allowing him to explore form and line by cutting into paper. This technique arose from the concept of the collage in the mid 1980s by a new development, ‘Gravitaciones’ (Gravitations), in which Chillida eliminated the adhesive from his collage, allowing the work to be suspended in space.