Chillida, beginning and end of the BBKateak program on the centenary of its birthJose Mari Martinez Bubu
On the centenary of the birth of Eduardo Chillidahe Bilbao Museum of Fine Artsan institution to which the San Sebastian sculptor was closely linked, wanted him to be the protagonist of the full stop of BBKateak, a program that was also responsible for opening two years ago. Then, he did it in an exhibition in which his work was linked to that of Albrecht Dürer, a German master of engraving born in 1471 and one of the most recognized artists of the German Renaissance. Now, he Chillida raises the curtain to the exhibition cycle of the Bilbao museum in a new face to face with another creator with whom, apparently, he has little to do: the Extremaduran Godofredo Ortega Muñoz.
The exhibition that puts these two artists on the same level will remain open until September 30 and brings together 12 works by Screech. Of them, seven are sculptures made in different materials such as terracotta, alabaster, steel, stone and wood, along with five works on paper. For her part, Ortega Muñoz presents nine paintings.
Javier González de Duranacurator of the exhibition, has carefully selected the pieces so that, in addition to reflecting the more than evident differences between both authors, they also reflect certain meeting points.
“His are artistic works of very different natures,” he stated in today’s presentation. Gonzalez de Durana, who highlights that they are artists from different generations – Chillida was born in 1924 and Ortega Muñoz 25 years earlier, in 1899 – and came into the world in almost opposite social and geographical contexts: “Chillida, born in the cosmopolitan San Sebastián and Ortega Muñoz, in a medium-sized town in the Extremadura pasture (San Vicente de Alcántara, in Badajoz)”. While the man from Gipuzkoa opted for an abstract language mainly through sculpture, the man from Extremadura did so through realism and landscaping, with painting as a mode of expression.
However, understand Gonzalez de Durana that each of them “with the technical and artistic resources that they dominate”, seek ideas and artistic objectives that they share in a part of their works. The commissioner believes that today “the existence of a common fund of modernity can be recognized with an unprejudiced eye” and that they did so “through formal and compositional solutions of surprising closeness.”
Screech and Ortega They coincided several times throughout their artistic careers, as in the Venice Biennale in 1958 or in 1962, as members of the jury of the competition for the award of the altarpiece of the Basilica of Arantzazu. However, González de Durana believes that “there was no mutual influence” and that theirs “are not patent points of contact, but latent ones.” He emphasizes that the coincidences “are not found in the obvious, but in the background.”
Luis Chillidapresident of the Eduardo Chillida-Pilar Belzunce Foundationhighlighted that, in addition to the centenary of his father’s birth, this 2024 will mark the 125th anniversary of Godofredo Ortega Muñoz. Furthermore, she looked back on her memory, remembering that “as a child, the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts was like my second home.”
That close relationship of Screech with the museum, its director also valued it, Miguel Zugazawho defined the joint exhibition with Ortega Muñoz as “a collection of poems written by Javier González de Durana” in which “the path that the work of both artists takes” is shown to reach the same place: the most exemplary honesty.
The mayor of Bilbao also attended the presentation of the exhibition, Juan Mari Aburtothanked Zugaza and his team to keep the Museum of Fine Arts open while the remodeling works are carried out outside. On the other hand, he described this exhibition of Screech and Muñoz Ortega that closes the initiative BBKateakwhich with 64 meetings between 110 artists from different periods has structured the activity in the 21 rooms of the old museum building over the last two years.
