Ep.
From this Tuesday until September 30, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum offers an “exceptional” artistic encounter in the form of a dialogue between works by the sculptor Eduardo Chillida and the landscape painter Godofredo Ortega Muñoz.
The exhibition, which closes the BBKateak program, sponsored by the banking foundation, brings together a total of 21 works, 12 by the San Sebastian artist Chillida, including sculptures and works on paper, and 9 paintings by the Extremaduran painter.
The exhibition has been curated and structured by the art historian Javier González de Durana, who proposes a meeting between these two greats of Basque and Spanish art of the 20th century, apparently unrelated in their interests and in the development of their work but with points of common artistic and biographical encounter.
González de Durana, who is artistic coordinator of the Ortega Muñoz Foundation (Badajoz), has selected each of the pieces on display based on a “subtle conversation of lines, colors, voids and gestures that reveal meeting points, and also differences”.
The intertwined view on the work of both artists is also reflected in a reasoned volume, with texts by González de Durana himself, which the museum has published for the occasion.
In his speech, the commissioner recalled that Ortega Muñoz (San Vicente de Alcántara, Badajoz, 1899-Madrid, 1982) and Chillida (San Sebastián, 1924-2002) coincided at work during the decades of 1950, 1960 and 1970 although they belonged to generations different and came from “very different” social and geographical contexts.
On the other hand, in addition to using different materials and techniques, since Chillida was predominantly a sculptor and Ortega Muñoz, a painter, they also “moved in registers and with purposes very far from each other”, which gave rise to artistic works belonging to conceptual worlds. “with little or no relationship.”
In this line, while Ortega Muñoz represented where he came from – realism in the common genres of painting – the other, Chillida, exemplified with his art where he was going – the invention of personal abstract languages. “No one then saw any kind of link or familiarity between them, but rather a contrast,” she stressed.
However, Durana added, “more than half a century has passed, and theoretical simplifications such as realism versus tradition; stagnation versus abstraction; avant-garde or progress have been overcome; today, it is possible to recognize the existence of a common background of modernity that each “one reached in his own way.”
From their perspective, they achieved this common background “sometimes” through “formal and compositional solutions of surprising closeness between the formal universe of Chillida’s sculptures, drawings and engravings and the painted landscapes of Ortega Muñoz.”
BASILICA OF ARANTZAZU AND BIENNIAL VENICE
Durana has highlighted the coincidences and meeting points between the two, where, “in addition to their desire for modernity, they are united by having a personality outside of fashions and groups and the coherent defense of their artistic searches and findings.”
In the biographical and vital field, despite being from different generations, Chillida and Ortega Muñoz met personally on various occasions and also taking part in exhibitions during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the most relevant of them, as members of the Spanish delegation at the 1958 Venice Biennale, to which each of the entire Spanish representation attended with the largest number of works, Chillida with 17 and Ortega Muñoz, with 16.
Both were also part of the jury for the selection of the altarpiece in the apse of the Arantzazu basilica, which fell “fortunately”, Durana said, to Lucio Muñoz, with certainty, by express choice of both artists, who convinced the rest of the jurors.
In addition to their desire for modernity, they are united by “being possessors of a personality outside of fashions and groups, and the coherent defense of their artistic searches and findings,” he emphasized.
Another coincidence, as he has explained, is that painting and sculpture are very distant formally and chronologically, but both refer to their respective lands of origin, with the presence of agrarian or rural elements, and while one focuses on the open “landscape” of Extremadura, Chillida opts for a compact “land”.
In addition to sharing a certain vision close to orientalism, they are also united, he concluded, by “a common interest in the territory” since they consider the horizon as “a fundamental line of the landscape.”
BBKateak PROGRAM
In her speech, the director of Social Work of the BBK Foundation, Nora Sarasola, recalled that the BBKateak program was launched in June 2022, precisely with Chillida as the protagonist alongside Durero and, in these more than two years of operation , the initiative has offered 64 meetings between 110 different artists from the collection in the 21 rooms of the old building.
Sarasola has highlighted that the curatorial line has sought to show in a dynamic way – with a weekly change of room – the extension of the chronology and the richness of the list of artists, as well as the enormous variety of techniques and creative purposes that the collection houses. from the museum”.
The program “is coming to an end,” he said, with another “exceptional meeting between two greats of Basque and Spanish art of the 20th century, apparently unrelated in their interests and in the development of their work” but who, he emphasized, “share modernity”.
The director of Social Work at the BBK Foundation has assured that, for her entity, “it has been a joy to collaborate with the museum with this program” which, she added, “ratifies BBK’s commitment to the culture of the territory to bring it closer to everyone.” Bizkaia, with the ultimate purpose of promoting greater dissemination”.
For his part, the director of Chillida Leku, Luis Chillida, has expressed his gratitude that the museum’s program has opened and closed around works by the ‘aita’ and has extended his gratitude to González de Durana, for having achieved that “the paths of these two artists have been able to come together thanks to their personal vision”.
In his opinion, this type of dialogue allows us to see “how seemingly distant works can be related, which confirms that “art is not closed but is constructed through watertight compartments.”
