THE EXHIBITION:
JESUS URIARTE
CHILLIDA LANEAN
15.03.2024 / 30.06.2024
Curator: Jon Uriarte
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Eduardo Chillida, and Kutxa Fundazioa wants to join in the commemoration with an exhibition of photographs taken by Jesus Uriarte.
Kutxa Fundazioa has not only used an image of a sculpture by Eduardo Chillida in its logo since 1990, it has also played a significant role in preserving and promoting Chillida’s legacy. It has collaborated in organising exhibitions, events and activities related to his work and the Jesus Uriarte. Chillida Lanean exhibition represents another milestone.
Curated by Jon Uriarte, the exhibition has been divided into four thematic sections that correspond to the four materials used by Chillida. This division reveals to us not only the artist’s work, but also the variety of working conditions of the photographer, as he attempted to capture the essence of the creative process without interfering in it, adapting to the distinctive features of the medium of production. In the words of the curator, his “images reveal the spaces, times and people involved (...) based on the close relationship that existed between the two as well as their ongoing collaboration over time”.
Earth
In 1995, Jesus Uriarte travelled to the ceramicist Hans Spinner’s studio in Grasse, where Eduardo Chillida had been creating his clay sculptures (Lurrak). The photographer had to earn his place gradually. Photographs from those days include distant, respectful points of view, as well as other close range shots. Uriarte succeeds in capturing the artist's concentration, but also the playfulness and good working relationship with Spinner.
Paper
Chillida created his drawings, collages and gravitations at Villa Ingeborg in San Sebastián. Uriarte’s access to Chillida’s most intimate creative space allowed him to photograph the artist as he worked and also meticulously document the tools he was using by utilising the natural light that entered through its skylights.
Steel
Jesus Uriarte photographed the construction of Peine del Viento [Comb of the Wind] in 1977, a few years before starting to work with Eduardo Chillida. His iconic photographs of the operators performing their work under challenging conditions (tides and heavy seas) bear witness to the complexity of the process and close collaboration that the artist had established with various industry agents.
A few years later, Jesus Uriarte began to work with Chillida to document the manufacturing process in the foundry and forge, where the sculptor appears accompanied by his assistants Fernando Mikelarena, Marcial Vidal and Joaquín Goikoetxea, working as one with them. Uriarte had to adapt to the conditions of this medium (fire, movement, poor lighting conditions and limited sensitivity of the film) and make decisions quickly. This was even more necessary during the production of large-scale steel works in industrial forges. There, Jesus Uriarte documented the complex forging techniques at extremely high temperatures, which required dozens of workers to shape the monumental sculptures produced by the sculptor for public spaces.
Concrete
The construction of Chillida’s concrete works was long and complex: from a mock-up to a 1:1 scale polystyrene model and formwork in an industrial building, to then dismantling and reassembling the work in its final location, where the concrete was poured. This process obviously required teamwork, and his main allies in this were the engineer José Antonio Fernández Ordóñez, JesusAledo for the polystyrene work, and the carpenter José Antonio Bereziartua for the formwork.
Uriarte documented the entire process of works such as Elogio del horizonte [Eulogy to the Horizon], installed in Gijón, or Monumento a la tolerancia [Monument to Tolerance], in Seville, among others. The extended production times and different spaces allowed him to work with greater calm and anticipation. Uriarte’s photographs depict the magnitude of these sculptures as well as their volumes and forms. The large dimensions of the pieces occasionally required him to climb up on the piece itself or be lifted up on the cranes operated by the workers.
©Jesus Uriarte
©VEGAP, Eduardo Chillida. Donostia / San Sebastián, 2024
THE PHOTOGRAPHER:
Jesus Uriarte (Passai Donibane, 1948)
Uriarte developed an interest in photography while studying Economic Sciences during the early 1970s. At the same time, he also became acquainted with other local artists, such as Rosa Valverde, Vicente Ameztoy, Ramón Zurriarain or Andrés Nagel, through the painter José Llanos, whose family vacationed in Pasaia.
After completing his degree in 1975, Uriarte travelled for several months in the US, where he had access to the Photography Department at the University of Buffalo and continued to nurture his interest in the medium there. Upon returning to San Sebastián, he began to collaborate with several recently created media outlets, such as Berriak, Egin or Ere. He then began collaborating with the newspaper El País when it was founded in 1976 and would continue to work there, first as a collaborator and then as a staff photojournalist, for more than forty years until his retirement. Interestingly, his first photographs published in El País were taken at the installation of an exhibition by the artist Andrés Nagel in Pamplona. Uriarte had begun to combine his work as a photojournalist with the reproduction of works by the San Sebastián artist in the mid-1970s. The work he did for Nagel reached the ears of other local artists who became interested in his services. Among them was Eduardo Chillida, with whom he established a close partnership that began in the early 1980s and lasted for many years.
The entirety of Jesus Uriarte’s photographic work covers the last quarter of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. His archive contains hundreds of thousands of images that document society in Gipuzkoa during various periods of particular social and political complexity, alongside other photographs that capture San Sebastián’s rich artistic and cultural scene, with which he continues to collaborate. The entirety of his portfolio is augmented by additional personal and family photographs in which he has given free rein to his wit and sense of humour.
©Jesus Uriarte
THE CURATOR:
Jon Uriarte (Hondarribia, 1980)
Curator, researcher and teacher, Jon Uriarte is co-director of the Master in Algorithmic and Networked Photography at Elisava and curator of Screen Walks, a collaborative online programme between the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland and The Photographers’ Gallery in London.
He has been a guest researcher at the MACBA Study Centre and has worked on developing the Online Photography Archive of the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia.
He curated the digital programme of The Photographers’ Gallery in London and the Getxophoto International Image Festival for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 editions. Before this he curated DONE, a programme exploring the digital online transformations of the image, promoted by Fotocolectania in Barcelona. As a selected curator for the Parallel – European Photo Based Platform, he curated the exhibition Currents Shift at Le Chateau d’Eau in Toulouse (France).
As co-founder of the Widephoto collective, an independent curatorial and cultural management initiative, he has co-curated several group and solo exhibitions, as well as performances and workshops in collaboration with various Spanish institutions. His teaching experience includes directing postgraduate courses, monitoring and accompanying the development of photographic projects and also presentations and masterclasses in various photography, film and design educational centres.
His essays and other texts have been published in a variety of international print and online media, such as FOAM Magazine or Il Gionarle Dell’Arte, as well as in academic and research journals and books such as The Routledge Companion to Photography, Representation and Social Justice (edited by Moritz Neumüller and published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group), Curating Digital Art (edited by Annette Dekker and published by Valiz) or Automated Photography (edited by Milo Keller, Claus Gunti and Florian Amoser and published by Morell Books and ECAL).
MEDIATION:
GUIDED TOURS
Every Sunday
At 5.30 pm in Basque and 6.30 pm in Spanish
Free admision with prior booking: T 943 251937 in the Gallery, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. s
FAMILY WORKSHOP
The sounds of photography with Lalala Soinu Gela
Saturday 20 April | 11.30 am.
Children rom 6 to 12 years old, accompanied by an adult.
Basque | 5 euros per child. Adults free
What do earth, paper, steel and concrete sound like? Four materials in four photographs by Jesus Uriarte inspire us to create different sounds that draw us nearer to the soundscape of Eduardo Chillida's creative process.
Prior booking on the website.
PUBLIC PROGRAM:
Descard here the public program
GUIDED TOUR
Processes guided tour with nausica Sánchez, head of Educational and Research at Chillida Leku Museum.
Thursday 11 April | 6.30 pm.
Spanish | Limited places | Free admission with prior booking on the web site.
With the colaboration of Chillida Leku Museum
PRESENTATION
Presentation of the photobook Jesus Uriarte. Chillida lanean, with Jesus Uriarte and with Jon Uriarte
Friday 17 may | 7.00 pm. | San Telmo Museoa
Spanish | Free entry untill completion of forum
In collaboration with San Telmo Museoa and Gabriela Cendoya Bergareche Collection.
The photographer Jesus Uriarte presents the photobook Chillida lanean, co-published by La Fábrica and Kutxa Fundazioa, as part of the eponymous exhibition to be held in Sala Artegunea at Kutxa Fundazioa from 15 March to 30 June 2024.
The publication includes a text by the curator Jon Uriarte together with more than 200 photographs that showcase the visual documentary work by Jesus Uriarte of the sculptor Eduardo Chillida.
OPEN ARCHIVE
Open archive: Exploring the Jesús Uriarte.Archive.
Thursday 13 June | 6.30 pm | Ruiz Balerdi Room (4th floor, Tabakalera)
Participants: Jesus Uriarte, Juanjo Aygües, Frantxi López Landatxe y Arantza Uriarte.
Moderator: Jon Uriarte
Spanish | Limited places | Completed
The Jesus Uriarte Archive (Pasai Donibane, 1948) brings together tens of thousands of images taken by the photographer throughout his life and professional career.
The photographic collection includes images taken as part of his work as a photojournalist for more than 40 years, including his visual documentary work of the sculptors Eduardo Chillida and Andrés Nagel, and also stills from the filming of the movies La Fuga de Segovia, Akelarre or La Conquista de Albania, among others. Alongside this professional facet is his personal archive, which portrays his most intimate family sphere.
The session is an invitation to submerge oneself among the images of an intense life, from his early photographs until he made this activity his profession, exploring his relationship with artists and friends and witnessing historical moments on the front lines. Jesus Uriarte has made his archive available, thereby displaying the more than ten years of photographs (1975-1986) that he has digitised so far with the help of his wife, Begoña Luxán, so that we can discover the size and richness of his collection. All this in the company of three people who know him well and have shared many moments with him in his professional, cultural and family sphere.
CATALOGUE:
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CATÁLOGUE
JESUS URIARTE Chillida lanean
Texts: Jon Uriarte Pages: 128 Publication year: 2024 Price: €35 (TAX included) LA FABRICA and Kutxa Fundazioa coedition |
GUIDE OF EXHIBITION:
Descard hear the guide of exhibition:
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@arteguneakutxa