Sunday, May 4, 2025, 18:39
| Updated 18: 50h.
The Gipuzkoan sculptor Iñaki Olazabal Eceiza died this Saturday in Donostia, at 65 years of age. Born in Andoain, in recent years he lived in Zumaia, where he had his workshop and a gallery. Olazabal was from the generation of artists like Koldobika Jauregi or Juan Chillida Ameztoy, both deaths also in recent months.
Olazabal began his sculptural formation in 1983 in the Sorabilla workshop led by Xabier Laka, a sculptor who promoted the pedagogical and sculptural ideology of Oteiza. He continued his training in Germany, at the Kunstakademie school in Düsseldorf between 1991 and 1993, where he acquired a more self -criticism position but with the desire to shape the postulate of social sculpture. As the artist explained in the presentation of one of his numerous exhibitions, “I was forming in the shadow of sculptors such as Oteiza, Chillida, Basterretxea and company and since 1983 I have been making my way.”
Zinc has been the material he has used most in his works. «I met him on the roofs of Paris; It is a more durable material than iron, I like to deal with this material; It is a little used material and thus differentiate myself from other artists, ”he said. With this material has created sculptures in various geometric and naked shapes. His works can be seen in various places of Basque geography, such as Andoain, Zumaia, Mendaro, Donostia, Orio, La Arboleda, Bilbao, Senpere or Donibane Garazi, among others. There is the circumstance that last Friday several strangers attacked three pieces of the artistic team ‘Elkarrizketa’ of the Arboleda, in Trapagaran, and threw them into the river. The work of Olazabal is also present at the Gipuzkoa General Boards with the sculptural team ‘in memory and recognition of all victims of terrorism and violence’ installed in 2007.
In his more than four decades of experience, the artist Andaindarra has exhibited in different galleries, such as Kur or Altxerri in Donostia or in Kold Anda, José Zugasti, Iñaki Ruiz de Eguino, Iñigo Arregi, Koldobika Jauregi and Olazabal himself. He also developed a project to install eleven public works in eleven municipalities, so the Oria river passes.
