Lurra G-124 Eduardo Chillida

Eduardo Chillida, who originally studied to be an architect, spent most of his life in the Basque Country, where he was born. The majority of his works concentrated on two fundamental problems of art. The first of these is the “negative space”, in which the enveloping form is conveyed only in the imagination, which metaphysically sets up a dialogue between the work and its surroundings. The monumental public sculptures Chillida made out of concrete or rusticated metal are reflections on this question. The border between the artwork and its environment also played an important part in the second sculptural dilemma that occupied the artist, namely the power of space to generate form when it intrudes into a self-contained solid shape. This notion led to the series of three-dimensional works titled Lurra, which means ʻearth’ in Basque, the first of which was made in 1977. The material Chillida chose, chamotte clay, is more resistant to the firing process than regular terracotta, and thus the sculpture gives the impression of an archaic object that conceals some long-forgotten secret. The work, as an organic representation of the unity of the universe, can also be regarded as an illustration of the philosophy of Heidegger, which examines the relationships between the beginning and the end of space – presence and absence are simultaneously visible and tangible within the sculpture.