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Eduardo Chillida

En el límite

26.3. – 18.6.1995
The term el limite (the border) is used to describe one of the main categories in Chillida's work. It first appears in the title of a work for a series of sculptures he began at the end of the 1950s: The first instance is "Rumor de limites "(Sound of the Borders), dated 1958, later an unusual monumental version is developed for an outside sculpture: "Monument (Rumor de limites XI)" 1971, which he located in front of the Thyssen Building in Düsseldorf.

Borders, and border areas are manifested in a multitude of forms and yet remain incomprehensible. Lines are used in drawing to denote a border and as a medium for the visualization of space and form. As Eduardo Chillida once remarked: "The line serves to unite the world, but at the same time divides it – drawing is at one and the same time beautiful and terrible." At the beginning of the 1990s, during his work on the monumental sculpture "Elogio del horizonte", for the steep coast in Gijón, this theme is primarily linked to that of the horizon. Both are interfaces, transcendental zones which do not exist per se, but rather refer to a mysterious, relational event in the abstraction of space. For the artist, a border is not a clearly defined line, but a vague, indeterminate space between two phenomena which converge with each other. The border line marks the difference between material and space, the alternation between space and time, in the same way that the horizon makes perceptible a border between the cosmos and the earth. The horizon is not a fixed location which allows us to approach it. Rather it accompanies us and depends on the respective viewing point of the observer.

"Is not a demarcation line the true protagonist of space, as the present – another type of delimitation – is the protagonist of time?" This was one of the "preguntas" (questions), Chillida posed during his inaugural lecture as honorary member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid in 1994.2  And he goes on to explain: "I believe that the true unadulterated dialog which takes place between material and space, the magnificent thing which unravels in a limited space, results decisively from the fact either that space is a swiftly moving material, or material space which scarcely moves. Is not demarcation not only a border between various densities, but also a border between various speeds?"3

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Diashow (3 Pictures)

Synagogue Stommeln, Eduardo Chillida, Exhibition View

Exhibition View

Synagogue Stommeln, Eduardo Chillida, Exhibition View

Exhibition View