La obra que se abre al otro. El papel de lo desconocido y la importancia de la variación en el arte y pensamiento de Eduardo Chillida

Abstract

Eduardo Chillida’s oeuvre is characterized by its constant enquiry into the unknown, the search for unity and dialogue with the other. For the Basque artist, who left not only an important sculptural and graphic oeuvre but also a surprising poetic–philosophical legacy, unity is not something that one can find or even possess in an autonomous artwork. It is something that one has also to seek beyond the work, in an open and dynamic time and space. To do this, the artwork has necessarily to open up to the other, to somebody or something we do not know. The general outline of Chillida’s artistic creation and of his ethical ideas, that we find in his writings, monuments and homages, is the idea of variation. In dialogue with Chillida’s oeuvre, of which we contemplate concrete examples, and taking as a starting point the music of Bach and the ideas of philosophers, which inspired the sculptor, this article analyses the role of the unknown and the importance of variation for Chillida