Chillida and the Ortega y Gasset awards, a marathon of virtually 42 years | Culture | EUROtoday

“It will cost me to see the Ortega y Gasset awards with an artistic image that is not that of Eduardo Chillida. I think the same will happen to many people,” says his grandson Mikel Chillida, improvement director of the Chillida Leku Museum. The determine of the good Basque sculptor (San Sebastián, 1924-2002) has accompanied with out interruption to journalism awards since its creation in 1984. In the final version, in full celebration of the Chillida 12 months on the event of the centenary of their beginning, the winners acquired Bridge (1989), an engraving loaded with symbolism for its that means (bridge It is bridge in Basque). With this work an finish to an extended stage of hyperlink between the artist and the competition organized by the nation. At the identical time, it acts as a bridge and represents a pleasant invitation to the opening of a brand new creative cycle of the Ortega and Gasset.

Chillida has 84 worldwide awards and awards, though in actuality he felt away from the awards. He by no means appeared to a contest and lived together with his again to creative competitiveness, though he acquired “delighted” laurels as “a recognition of the entire work.” However, he agreed to take part within the beginning of the Ortega and Gasset awards: “The grandfather [abuelo en euskera] He shared fully in his work, ”says Mikel Chillida,“ values ​​such as freedom of expression, independence, honesty or rigor, ”exactly people who stand out yearly within the galas of the journalistic contest.

“Eduardo Chillida’s relationship with the country dates back to the origin of the newspaper. It was one of its founding partners in 1976. During those years of the democratic transition, and later, it was also on the first line, committed to the new codes of democracy, freedom and plurality that were being created in the country,” says the grandson of the sculptor. It was in that atmosphere of complicity that the newspaper requested Chillida for his collaboration with the Ortega and Gasset Awards. He designed the unique emblem and chosen from its huge assortment the and so on. Glance (1989), whose translation into Spanish is a guard, viglia or sentinel, to reward the authors of the most effective journalistic works of every 12 months. When this sequence was exhausted, it was delivered Eveter II (1999) Already continuation Finger (2000), the “better known and representative etching of the Ortega and Gasset,” says Mikel Chillida.

After Finger (finger) arrived Bridgewith which this journey goes to shut as a result of Chillida’s legacy is everlasting, however his creations are finite. “At this point, as the artist is not, you cannot create new work. We are limited by the availability of work,” explains the artist’s grandson. Believe that Bridge It is “the most beautiful way to celebrate and end this stage and also to make bridge to give way to artists of new generations.” In the 2024 version, held on the Barcelona City Council, Mikel Chillida took the ground to spotlight the significance of rewarding “values ​​such as commitment, dialogue and tolerance”, which had been exactly “the engines in the life of Chillida” and made him who he’s in the present day. “It is important that that job continue to be done [periodístico] So important, so risky, to get to people and continue having the tools to judge what is happening in society and so that the world is a better place, so that we are more tolerant, ”he said before that auditorium.

Of the tune between Chillida and the country realizes the commission that the sculptor received to celebrate in 1996 the 20th anniversary of the newspaper. He created for the occasion a gravitation whose composition symbolizes a hand and replied in a sculpture with Chamota land, an oxide that is preserved in the newspaper and carries in the back the congratulation of the artist with his calligraphy: “1996 twenty anniversary the country”. In that commemoration, Chillida said: “That it flies and that weigh. Years later, the nation needed to honor the sculptor when he had already died and provided in 2007 his readers the chance to get an unique design tableware with the authenticity seal of Chillida-Leku.

Chillida conceived the artist as “a background corridor.” He has coated virtually a 41 -year -old marathon linked to the Ortega and Gasset, and now offers Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, 68 years outdated) in order that this turns into the aesthetic consultant of the journalistic awards. Mikel Chillida argues that the relay “is very well thought out.” Both shared in 1986 (tenth anniversary of the newspaper) a gathering moderated by the then artwork critic Francisco Calvo Serraller in a radio program El País. Before that they had already had some conferences and the connection was extra through the years.

In 2024, the Mallorcan painter visited Chillida Leku, the place “spent many hours” considering the works and within the firm of family of the Basque sculptor. “They had a good relationship. They shared the essence of art, fully linked to journalism, to seek what is not seen with the naked eye. Miquel and my grandfather They have in common that curiosity to know what is beyond the first look. ”Mikel Chillid [a Barceló] It could be very nicely symbolized by that bridge-bridge”, Judgment.