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Lot Essay
This work is registered in the archives of the Museo Chillida-Leku, under number 1984.063.
With its progressive sequence of black ideogram-like images stained into the surface of a grid-like series of earthenware tile blocks using black copper oxide, Mural G-46 is a large and comparatively rare clay work from 1984 in which the inert regularity of a wall of bricks has seemingly been given lyrical sculptural form. A regular sequence of hard-baked 'tierra chamota' clay tiles stained with a black copper oxide in such a way that it has been encouraged to seep into these earthy blocks like a energising calligraphy breathing dynamic life into the inert solid material heart of their rectangular form, this work is one of only relatively few murals by Chillida to have been created during his lifetime.
Chillida's work in clay usually took the form of strongly three-dimensional sculptures made in solid blocks. The solid nature of clay, the way it was impregnated by the air, by space and the void, as well as its need to withstand and resist the primal element of fire, fascinated Chillida. In his clay sculptures he sought to probe the nature of the material by 'questioning the block' as he put it. All Chillida's art was a questioning of the nature of reality around him. His work was in many ways a kind of scientific investigation of the communion between material, space and time. As Octavio Paz wrote of his art, it 'evokes a sort of qualitative physics recalling that of the pre-Socratic philosophers.' (Chillida, quoted in Eduardo Chillida, exh. cat., Venice, 1990, p. 15.)
The solidity and mystery of the clay block forms the central aspect of all Chillida's work in clay. In contrast to his clay sculpture however, the play of solid material and empty space so central to Chillida's art is expressed in murals like this work in the form of ideogram-like images stained into the surface of the 'tierra chamota' tiles using black copper oxide. In staining rather than painting the work, Chillida seems to add nothing but a penetrating sense of depth and volume to the flat surface of the clay while also maintaining the integrity of his material. A seemingly open form with its lattice network of black lines, this pictogram seems to breathe a sense of lightness or air into the flat solid wall of clay tiles.
With a dark square at its centre out of which radiate a series of meandering lines, Chillida seems to trace a path to the centre of the work in the same way that his chiselled penetrations of the clay block question the nature of its solidity. In this way, the flat surface of the mural is both exposed and questioned in exactly the same way as Chillida manages to subvert the sense of solidity in the clay block.
With its progressive sequence of black ideogram-like images stained into the surface of a grid-like series of earthenware tile blocks using black copper oxide, Mural G-46 is a large and comparatively rare clay work from 1984 in which the inert regularity of a wall of bricks has seemingly been given lyrical sculptural form. A regular sequence of hard-baked 'tierra chamota' clay tiles stained with a black copper oxide in such a way that it has been encouraged to seep into these earthy blocks like a energising calligraphy breathing dynamic life into the inert solid material heart of their rectangular form, this work is one of only relatively few murals by Chillida to have been created during his lifetime.
Chillida's work in clay usually took the form of strongly three-dimensional sculptures made in solid blocks. The solid nature of clay, the way it was impregnated by the air, by space and the void, as well as its need to withstand and resist the primal element of fire, fascinated Chillida. In his clay sculptures he sought to probe the nature of the material by 'questioning the block' as he put it. All Chillida's art was a questioning of the nature of reality around him. His work was in many ways a kind of scientific investigation of the communion between material, space and time. As Octavio Paz wrote of his art, it 'evokes a sort of qualitative physics recalling that of the pre-Socratic philosophers.' (Chillida, quoted in Eduardo Chillida, exh. cat., Venice, 1990, p. 15.)
The solidity and mystery of the clay block forms the central aspect of all Chillida's work in clay. In contrast to his clay sculpture however, the play of solid material and empty space so central to Chillida's art is expressed in murals like this work in the form of ideogram-like images stained into the surface of the 'tierra chamota' tiles using black copper oxide. In staining rather than painting the work, Chillida seems to add nothing but a penetrating sense of depth and volume to the flat surface of the clay while also maintaining the integrity of his material. A seemingly open form with its lattice network of black lines, this pictogram seems to breathe a sense of lightness or air into the flat solid wall of clay tiles.
With a dark square at its centre out of which radiate a series of meandering lines, Chillida seems to trace a path to the centre of the work in the same way that his chiselled penetrations of the clay block question the nature of its solidity. In this way, the flat surface of the mural is both exposed and questioned in exactly the same way as Chillida manages to subvert the sense of solidity in the clay block.