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Lot Essay
Executed in 1968, Relieve (Relief) is a dynamic, intimate example of Eduardo Chillida’s sculptural practice. Carved out of granite, its robust extruding lattice demonstrates the artist’s commitment to the rigours of geometric form. Passionate about Greek sculpture but wary of its seductive beauty, Chillida sought to interrogate the architecture of space, creating raw, elemental structures animated by the play of light. Like the models that he made as a student of architecture, the present work hints at an interiority, yet unlike his large-scale public constructions, this space remains forever undiscoverable. ‘Although I am the one who determines the outer form,’ Chillida said, ‘I am simply obeying, in and through the form, that necessity which decrees the development of all living forms. When I begin, I have no idea where I’m going. All I can see is a certain spatial constellation from which lines of strength gradually emerge’ (E. Chillida quoted in P. Selz, Chillida, New York, 1986, p. 12).
Despite the geometric abstraction that govern his work, Chillida’s sculptures are rooted in the organic and elemental. Their weighty presence contains his hope of making visible the void, the central preoccupation of his practice. As the artist explained, 'Sculpture is a function of space. I don't mean the space outside the form, which surrounds the volume and in which the form lives, but the space generated by the form, which lives within it and which is more effective the more unnoticeably it acts. You could compare it to the breath that swells and contracts forms, that opens up their space – inaccessible to and hidden from the outside world – to view. I do not see it as something abstract, but as a reality as solid as the volume that envelops it' (E. Chillida, quoted in I. Busch, 'Eduardo Chillida, Architect of the Void: On the Synthesis of Architecture and Sculpture', Chillida 1948-1998, exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 1998, p. 66). Relieve (Relief) is a skilful manipulation of granite, a delineation of light and shadow, a poetic play of form.
Despite the geometric abstraction that govern his work, Chillida’s sculptures are rooted in the organic and elemental. Their weighty presence contains his hope of making visible the void, the central preoccupation of his practice. As the artist explained, 'Sculpture is a function of space. I don't mean the space outside the form, which surrounds the volume and in which the form lives, but the space generated by the form, which lives within it and which is more effective the more unnoticeably it acts. You could compare it to the breath that swells and contracts forms, that opens up their space – inaccessible to and hidden from the outside world – to view. I do not see it as something abstract, but as a reality as solid as the volume that envelops it' (E. Chillida, quoted in I. Busch, 'Eduardo Chillida, Architect of the Void: On the Synthesis of Architecture and Sculpture', Chillida 1948-1998, exh. cat., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 1998, p. 66). Relieve (Relief) is a skilful manipulation of granite, a delineation of light and shadow, a poetic play of form.