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Museum, San Sebastián Sculptor Eduardo Chillida’s open-air gallery reopens after nine years
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The leafy paradise that 20th-century Basque artist Eduardo Chillida dreamed of for the display of his work has just reopened after a nine-year hiatus
Chillida Leku, the open-air museum in San Sebastián founded by the Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002) has reopened its doors after a closure of nine years. To visit the site is to experience art, nature, love – and triumph over adversity.
Located in the village of Hernani, the museum is home to 40 vast steel and granite sculptures by Chillida that stand among trees, manicured lawns and rolling hills; the harsh Corten steel forms of monumental works such as Buscando la Luz and Lotura XXXII contrast with lush, verdant greenery. A 16th-century caserío, or Basque farmhouse, displays Chillida’s alabaster, plaster and clay sculptures, collages, engravings and drawings and are a testament to his talents. The 11-hectare site is in every sense the utopia Chillida wanted it to be, a place where his sculptures “could rest and where people could walk through them as though in a forest”.
What’s more, it has always been a family affair. Chillida and his wife and right-hand woman Pilar Belzunce opened the park in 2000 – two years before Chillida died. (He and Belzunce are buried together on a secluded plot marked by an iron cross that the artist designed.) Eight years later, their eight offspring were forced to close the park in the face of financial woes.
When, in 2017, mega gallery Hauser & Wirth stepped in with the offer to represent the estate and regenerate the site, it was a lifeline. Since then, Dutch landscape maestro Piet Oudolf has redesigned the paths and gardens and Argentine architect Luis Laplace has created a visitor centre, shop and restaurant. A revamped exhibition programme is launching in January with a retrospective of the late American sculptor David Smith, the first time an outside artist has been shown at the museum.
“When we began representing the estate in 2017, one of our first steps was to safeguard Chillida Leku and in doing so preserve the artist’s legacy,” says Hauser & Wirth’s president Iwan Wirth. “Chillida Leku is more than a museum: it is a gesamtkunstwerk created by one of the most outstanding artists of the 20th century. We are immensely proud to have supported and collaborated with the estate to ensure it reopened successfully, allowing so many people to make an art pilgrimage to San Sebastián to see his work in a new light.”
Although Chillida’s sculptures can be found in prestigious locations such as the World Bank offices in Washington DC and Unesco’s Paris headquarters, he never strayed far from his home city, choosing his beloved Basque light above a Mediterranean one, and working with local foundries and materials. Mikel Chillida, the artist’s grandson and the park’s development director, recalls that every Sunday he and 27 members of his family would have lunch at their grandparents’ house. Located above the cliffs at Ondaretta Beach in San Sebastián, it was the artist’s favourite place. Here, he would ponder sea, space and horizon; in 1977, he created one of his most famous works, next to the sea – Peine del Viento, a three-piece steel sculpture embedded into the rocks and reefs.
A visit to this windswept site is a must, for the works will eventually be washed away, as will the rocks that support them. Impossible to erode, though will be Chillida’s lasting legacy. Words Emma O’Kelly
Facing page Lotura XXXII, a Corten steel work from 1998, created in a Cantabrian forge. Chillida didn’t consider the work complete until the first layer of rust had formed Image by Iñigo Santiago
134 © Zalabaga Leku. Courtesy of the Chillida estate/Hauser & Wirth
Facing page Top to bottom: El Peine del Viento, one of Chillida’s best-known works; Echoes, a retrospective of work at Chillida’s Leku’s farmhouse Images by Català-Roca and Gonzalo Machado
Above Arco de Libertad (1993) sits at the end of a leafy boulevard Image by Mikel Chillida
