CHILLIDA IN MENORCA
The presentation concept, developed by architect Luis Laplace with a focus on local materials, amplifies the artist’s bond with the island and its natural environment. Accompanying the exhibition is an Education Lab, developed in partnership with Chillida Leku and the NGO Menorca Preservation via its project Plastic Free Menorca.
May 11 - October 27, 2024
Eduardo Chillida (1924 – 2002) is one of the preeminent Spanish sculptors of the 20th century, whose varied and pioneering practice reinterpreted the dialectic of solid and void, positive and negative and interior and exterior space. Chillida’s connection with Menorca formed during the many summers he spent on the island from 1989.
In Menorca, Chillida drew inspiration from the white light of the Mediterranean that was a perfect contrast to the ‘black light’ of his native Basque Country, as he described it. He held an enduring admiration for the light, the open-air quarries of local ‘marès’ stone and the monuments from the Talayotic period, including T-shaped ‘taules’ (‘tables’ in Catalan) which inspired some of his works and have been recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2023.
‘Chillida in Menorca’ showcases a series of well-known steel sculptures and wood reliefs, emphasising Chillida’s interest in making space visible through the forms around it. Initially a student of architecture, Chillida explored concepts such as the limit, space and scale. In ‘Proyecto para un monumento’ (Project for a Monument)’ (1969), a play on scale linking to the artist’s many public monuments, interior space is shaped through three solid blocks that fit together.
In works such as ‘Lurra M-32 (Earth M-32)’ (1996), fine incisions reveal patterns of straight and circular shapes. In other pieces such as ‘Lurra M-13 (Earth M-13)’ (1995), the incisions would penetrate in such a way to reveal the interior space and impart a sensation of buoyancy.
The final galleries in the exhibition foreground the artist’s passion for natural phenomena. He incorporated organic shapes in his early works on paper and steel sculptures and emphasised the natural qualities of the materials he worked with such as granite, alabaster and felt, amongst others. An example of this is the granite piece ‘Escuchando a la piedra III (Listening to the Stone III)’ (1996), in which the artist removed just enough material to reveal the form and emphasise the rock’s impenetrability.
Placed in dialogue with the Mediterranean Sea is ‘Proyecto Peine del viento I (Comb of the Wind Project I)’ (1966). The study is part of the artist’s most important series of work, culminating with three colossal steel sculptures embedded in the rocks on the seashore of San Sebastián, a work which fuses materials, land, sea, and air.