Eduardo Chillida | Bajo Relive
Bajo relive
1973
Alabaster
11 13/16 x 13 x 2 inches (30 x 33 x 5 cm)
© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid
The luminous alabaster sculpture Bajo relive (1973), by Basque artist Eduardo Chillida explores ways in which mass and volume inhabit and contain space. Chillida understood that space is not in fact empty, but relational, situational, and contingent. “Perceiving directly acts upon the present,” he once wrote, “but with one foot firmly planted in the future. Experience, on the other hand, does the contrary: you are in the present, but with one foot in the past. In other words, I prefer the position of perception. All of my work is the progeny of the question. I am a specialist in asking questions, some without answers.”