On the occasion of the inauguration of the new exhibition rooms, Lorenzelli Arte is presenting one of the great masters of our century, the Basque artist Eduardo Chillida, born in San Sebastian in 1924.
In 1958 an outstanding international figure, Chillida, received the Gran Premio Internazionale della Scultura ( International Gran Prix for Sculpture) at the Biennale of Venice, where a large exhibit in homage to this artist was given in the rooms of the Cà Pesaro of the 1990 Biennale.
In spite of these two important “Italian” occasions, as well as a series of prizes and international acknowledgements, the public in this country has little familiarity with the work of this Spanish master who, instead, is a fundamental figure of reference for many sculptors of the last few generations. The present retrospective exhibition is therefore a particularly significant cultural event and underscores the attention that Lorenzelli Arte has given in Italy to the promotion of artists who, so far, have not received the attention they deserve.
This Milanese exhibit, which closely follows two important exhibits held at the Nacional Reina Sofia Museum of Madrid and at the Museo d'Arte of Mendrisio in Switzerland, given at the same time as the Guggenheim exhibit of Bilbao, is composed of works that the artist has selected from his personal collection: a series of sculptures – the Lurrak, fired terracottas only rarely exhibited in public, and a beautiful series of Gravitaciones, reliefs of various strata of paper, cut and partly painted in black china ink, tied and hung on a chord. Outstanding in this last category are those dedicated to San Juan de la Cruz and Johann Sebastian Bach. Apparently fragile these gravitazioni (gravitations) enclose the complete poetic spirit of the artist and his expressive power, which turns out to be as eloquent as in his “more important” works executed in metal or in gres.
Collected in Lorenzelli Arte Gallery are about eighty works with which one can follow Chillida's quest in the last ten years, and appreciate the lines along which he follows today and will follow in the next few years. Extraordinarily vital at 75 years of age, he continues to open – as Kosme de Barañano writes – “the doors to new fields of vision”.