Zumaia: Goodbye to the sculptor Iñaki Olazabal, who sought to take the viewer “to different sites”

The sculptor Iñaki Olazabal Eceiza, Andoindarra resident in Zumaia, died on Saturday at age 65. Considered one of the artists of the Postgaur generation, he stood out for the use of the tinned zinc. In his works the gray color predominated, although in some geometric elements he also incorporated some color. Among his creations, the best known for the Zumaiarras is, without a doubt, he is ‘Elkarrizketa’, a sculptural set of seven pieces that dialogue with each other and that was installed in 2010 in the Gernika Park.

Olazabal liked to get emotions among the people who visited their exhibitions, and, according to him, they were achieved when they reached the room. «Each person can transmit different things. A person can lead to a mentally, but another place to a totally different place, and that is what I intend, to provoke those situations with the viewer, ”he told this newspaper in 2015, before inaugurating an exhibition in the Oxford Hall of Zumaia.

Although Iñaki Olazabal studied to be an electrician, in 1983 he began his artistic career, being part of the sorabilla workshop in Andoain, under the direction of the artist Xabier Laka. After participating in several courses in Arteleku, he studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany. He conducted different sculptural projects, such as ‘Elkarrizketa’ in the Gernika Park in Zumaia or the 7 -piece sets in the Oria River. He also took his ‘Elkarrizketa’ to other Basque municipalities such as Trapagaran, which was precisely vandalized last Friday (two of the five pieces located in the grove and threw them into the river). The artist developed a project to install eleven public works in eleven municipalities.

Olazabal exhibited in Salas as in the Kur gallery, in Koldo Mitxelena, in the Kubo room of the Kursaal in Donostia or in numerous private spaces in Germany and France. He has also had works in collections in Artium, Germany, France and Switzerland. Also in Zumaia, at the Ignacio Zuloaga Foundation in Santiago Etxea, or in the JJGG of Gipuzkoa, where the sculptural team ‘is located in memory and recognition of all the victims of terrorism and violence’.