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Lot Essay
‘The immediacy of action retained within the coiling metal is alive in its now static form. But it is anything but still’ (Eduardo Chillida)
Held in the same family collection for the past six decades, Modulación del espacio III (Modulation of Space III) belongs to an important trio of sculptures made by Eduardo Chillida in 1963. Its companions reside in major museum collections: the first in the Tate, London, and the second in the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg. Each is forged from a single piece of iron, manipulated into complex forms that variously encage, unfurl or fold in on themselves. The present work is a coiled contortion of tense right-angles, sweeping curves and outstretched bars, enacting the dynamic ‘modulation of space’ described in the title. Shaped by hammer and heat, with cuts made in the metal to enable its flex, it resounds with the forces of the forge. Modulación del espacio III has been unseen in public since 1964, when it was shown at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, and subsequently in that year’s edition of documenta in Kassel.
Drawing upon an array of influences—including his early training in architecture, sculptural studies in Paris and an instinctive, athletic understanding of space honed during his career as a goalkeeper for Real Sociedad—Chillida established a unique artistic vocabulary in forged iron. He made his first iron sculpture in 1951 soon after returning from France to his native San Sebastián. Elemental within the Basque world of sailors, blacksmiths, stone and sea, iron also had distinct material qualities that allowed Chillida to explore volume in ways that were at once physical, philosophical and poetic. Unlike marble or plaster, which are carved through a reductive process, it becomes ductile when heated in fire and can be made to twist, extend and plunge through space. In the three Modulación del espacio works, Chillida composed a rich dialogue between void and material. He saw parallels between sculpture and music—with its rhythms, silences, and time—and ‘modulation’, in musical terms, is a shift from one tonality to another.
Another key inspiration was a journey Chillida took through Greece, Italy and Provence in 1963, accompanied by his wife Pilar Beluncze and the poet Jacques Dupin. The trip opened up his understanding of space and light. He observed the sun illuminating the interiors of white buildings on the Cyclades Islands. In Rome he encountered the work of the post-Impressionist sculptor Medardo Rosso, who articulated ephemeral, atmospheric effects of light and shade in the surfaces of his innovative plaster sculptures. Upon his return, Chillida sought to develop his own distinctly Basque idiom with these new lessons.
Modulación del espacio III is made from the square iron bar that would become increasingly central to Chillida’s output over the following years, including his monumental work Peine del viento XV (Comb of the Wind XV), which was installed on San Sebastián’s coast in 1976-1977. His earlier iron sculptures were often pronged and linear, recalling agricultural tools, before more volumetric forms emerged in series such as the Yunques de sueños (Anvils of dreams) of 1954-1966. ‘In the early 1960s the metal bars become more squared and often resemble industrial iron beams’, explains Peter Selz. ‘Modulation of Space I (1963) is made from a single piece of iron bent into multiple shapes. The work regulates, it adjusts, it modulates the space, inside and out; it hugs the ground, but it also twists and rears like a gigantic curved ribbon’ (P. Selz, Chillida, New York 1986, p. 12).
The leading British sculptor Phyllida Barlow greatly admired Modulación del espacio I in the Tate’s collection, and wrote a celebration of the work in 2011. ‘I cannot work it out. I cannot resolve it. It is always different’, said Barlow. She noted that it radiated the energy of its making, which required tremendous heat, speed and dexterity: ‘a moment in time is forever captured within the folds and coils of the sculpture. Similarly, the heat is somehow retained. It is as if it is still darkly smouldering … The contrast between the bold structure, the thickness and darkness of the materials and the ease of the flow of the iron can also displace its sculptural qualities: it becomes a drawing seemingly scrawled into space at speed with gestural confidence’ (P. Barlow, ‘In the heat of the moment’, Tate Etc., Issue 23, Autumn 2011). These same attributes define the present work, which is at once darkly substantial and as deft as calligraphy, with light and air moving freely through its negative spaces.
Held in the same family collection for the past six decades, Modulación del espacio III (Modulation of Space III) belongs to an important trio of sculptures made by Eduardo Chillida in 1963. Its companions reside in major museum collections: the first in the Tate, London, and the second in the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg. Each is forged from a single piece of iron, manipulated into complex forms that variously encage, unfurl or fold in on themselves. The present work is a coiled contortion of tense right-angles, sweeping curves and outstretched bars, enacting the dynamic ‘modulation of space’ described in the title. Shaped by hammer and heat, with cuts made in the metal to enable its flex, it resounds with the forces of the forge. Modulación del espacio III has been unseen in public since 1964, when it was shown at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, and subsequently in that year’s edition of documenta in Kassel.
Drawing upon an array of influences—including his early training in architecture, sculptural studies in Paris and an instinctive, athletic understanding of space honed during his career as a goalkeeper for Real Sociedad—Chillida established a unique artistic vocabulary in forged iron. He made his first iron sculpture in 1951 soon after returning from France to his native San Sebastián. Elemental within the Basque world of sailors, blacksmiths, stone and sea, iron also had distinct material qualities that allowed Chillida to explore volume in ways that were at once physical, philosophical and poetic. Unlike marble or plaster, which are carved through a reductive process, it becomes ductile when heated in fire and can be made to twist, extend and plunge through space. In the three Modulación del espacio works, Chillida composed a rich dialogue between void and material. He saw parallels between sculpture and music—with its rhythms, silences, and time—and ‘modulation’, in musical terms, is a shift from one tonality to another.
Another key inspiration was a journey Chillida took through Greece, Italy and Provence in 1963, accompanied by his wife Pilar Beluncze and the poet Jacques Dupin. The trip opened up his understanding of space and light. He observed the sun illuminating the interiors of white buildings on the Cyclades Islands. In Rome he encountered the work of the post-Impressionist sculptor Medardo Rosso, who articulated ephemeral, atmospheric effects of light and shade in the surfaces of his innovative plaster sculptures. Upon his return, Chillida sought to develop his own distinctly Basque idiom with these new lessons.
Modulación del espacio III is made from the square iron bar that would become increasingly central to Chillida’s output over the following years, including his monumental work Peine del viento XV (Comb of the Wind XV), which was installed on San Sebastián’s coast in 1976-1977. His earlier iron sculptures were often pronged and linear, recalling agricultural tools, before more volumetric forms emerged in series such as the Yunques de sueños (Anvils of dreams) of 1954-1966. ‘In the early 1960s the metal bars become more squared and often resemble industrial iron beams’, explains Peter Selz. ‘Modulation of Space I (1963) is made from a single piece of iron bent into multiple shapes. The work regulates, it adjusts, it modulates the space, inside and out; it hugs the ground, but it also twists and rears like a gigantic curved ribbon’ (P. Selz, Chillida, New York 1986, p. 12).
The leading British sculptor Phyllida Barlow greatly admired Modulación del espacio I in the Tate’s collection, and wrote a celebration of the work in 2011. ‘I cannot work it out. I cannot resolve it. It is always different’, said Barlow. She noted that it radiated the energy of its making, which required tremendous heat, speed and dexterity: ‘a moment in time is forever captured within the folds and coils of the sculpture. Similarly, the heat is somehow retained. It is as if it is still darkly smouldering … The contrast between the bold structure, the thickness and darkness of the materials and the ease of the flow of the iron can also displace its sculptural qualities: it becomes a drawing seemingly scrawled into space at speed with gestural confidence’ (P. Barlow, ‘In the heat of the moment’, Tate Etc., Issue 23, Autumn 2011). These same attributes define the present work, which is at once darkly substantial and as deft as calligraphy, with light and air moving freely through its negative spaces.