“The Construction of Form”: major new exhibition of Remigio Mendiburu’s work at the Oteiza Museum.

The show, which includes many previously undisplayed pieces, focuses on the sculptor’s most essential sculpture from the 1970s

Title: Remigio Mendiburu, the Construction of Form.

Production: Oteiza Museum. Encounters Programme No. 2.

Dates: 14 June – 7 October 2012

Curated by: Juan Pablo Huércanos

Exhibition design: Javier Balda

With the collaboration of Obra Social de Kutxa, Mancomunidad Comarca de Pamplona.

Remigio Mendiburu, (b. Hondarribia, 1931 – d. Barcelona, 1990) used time as a material in his sculpture. Much of his work was closely associated with the renewal of modern sculpture in the second half of the twentieth century. In the early

1970s, he developed his own personal model for constructing his works, which involved accumulating and assembling a range of elements, often organic. Using this model, he managed to bring the sculpture down from its pedestal to lay it out in space and life.

His singular creative oeuvre, with its knotted and woven structures, embodying the symbolic and metaphoric power of sculpture, is now the subject of a major new exhibition that seeks to re-examine the singular language of one of the most personal artists of contemporary art.

The exhibition forms part of the “Encounters” programme, run by the Museo Oteiza, which began last year. It is curated by Juan Pablo Huércanos, deputy director of the museum, and organised in collaboration with the Obra Social de Kutxa, Mancomunidad Comarca de Pamplona. The Museo Oteiza is financed by the Government of Navarra.

The show contains nearly 40 exhibits from a variety of collections, dating from between 1970 and 1982. Some are in large format and many are previously unshown. The sculptures and works on paper centre on one of the artist’s most intense periods, when he managed to broke through the limits of the sculptural object and occupy the surrounding space. Mendizabal developed a constructive logic of weave and assembly. Combined with his use of povera materials (a technique that had great resonance in his surroundings), it allowed him to abandon the base and a desire for representation and look instead for a sculpture that would shed pre-established formalisms and which could be constructed in time and matter.

The exhibition also includes numerous documentary elements and two audio-visual pieces, Dunbots, (1982, Gerardo Armesto, 14’) and Nortasuna (1975, Pedro Sota, 44. There is also one unusual piece: the artist’s work for the poster of the 1975 bull-fighting season in Pamplona. As part of the Encounters programme, a special monograph on Mendiburu is also being published as Issue 2 of the Encounters programme.

In 1966, Remigio Mendiburu joined the Gaur group, alongside other artists including Amable Arias, Néstor Basterretxea, Eduardo Chillida, Jorge Oteiza, Rafael Ruiz Balerdi, José Antonio Sistiaga and José Luis Zumeta. In the same year he was selected to participate at the Venice Biennale. Thereafter he consolidated his reputation as a sculptor, showing his work at a range of Spanish and international venues in Germany, the USA, and Italy and at Art Basel (1976), Mile 3 in Chicago, 1984 and the first Sculpture Triennial of Paris (1978). He held numerous exhibitions and carried out a number of pieces of public art.

Educational activities

Free guided tours

The museum is organising a number of guided tours of the exhibition. The first will be held at 12 o’clock on Saturday 16 June and will be given by the exhibition curator, Juan Pablo Huércanos. Tours will also be held at 12:00 on 22 and 29 September.

Architecture workshop. “Enjaulados [Caged]”

(6 – 12 years)

The workshop takes as its starting point the piece Mendiburu entitled “Cage for Free Birds” and will combine concepts of sculpture and architecture. The children participating in the workshop will design their own personal cages out of materials taken from nature, such as wood, leaves and flowers. The workshop lasts for two days: Saturday 29 September, from 11 am – 1 pm and Sunday 30 September, from 11 am – 1 pm. Enrolment fee: €10

Educational workshops in August

(6 – 12 years)

The exhibition will be used as a starting point for working with materials taken from nature, such as wood, leaves, water and clay. The workshops will cover the week beginning 6 August.

Related publications

Remigio Mendiburu. La construcción de la forma/Formaren eraikuntza

Exhibition program PDF