“It will cost me to see the Ortega y Gasset awards with an artistic image that is not that of Eduardo Chillida. I think the same will happen to many people,” says his grandson Mikel Chillida, development director of the Chillida Leku Museum. The figure of the great Basque sculptor (San Sebastián, 1924-2002) has accompanied without interruption to journalism awards since its creation in 1984. In the last edition, in full celebration of the Chillida year on the occasion of the centenary of their birth, the winners received Bridge (1989), an engraving loaded with symbolism for its meaning (bridge It is bridge in Basque). With this work an end to a long stage of link between the artist and the contest organized by the country. At the same time, it acts as a bridge and represents a friendly invitation to the opening of a new artistic cycle of the Ortega and Gasset.
Chillida has 84 international awards and awards, although in reality he felt away from the awards. He never appeared to a contest and lived with his back to artistic competitiveness, although he received “delighted” laurels as “a recognition of the entire work.” However, he agreed to participate in the birth of the Ortega and Gasset awards: “The grandfather (Grandfather in Basque) shared fully in his work, ”says Mikel Chillida,“ values such as freedom of expression, independence, honesty or rigor ”, precisely those that stand out annually in the galas of the journalistic contest.
“Eduardo Chillida’s relationship with the country dates back to the origin of the newspaper. It was one of its founding partners in 1976. During those years of the democratic transition, and later, it was also on the first line, committed to the new codes of democracy, freedom and plurality that were being created in the country,” says the grandson of the sculptor. It was in that environment of complicity that the newspaper asked Chillida for his collaboration with the Ortega and Gasset Awards. He designed the original logo and selected from its enormous collection the etc. Glance (1989), whose translation into Spanish is a guard, viglia or sentinel, to reward the authors of the best journalistic works of each year. When this series was exhausted, it was delivered Eveter II (1999) Already continuation Finger (2000), the “better known and representative etching of the Ortega and Gasset,” says Mikel Chillida.
After Finger (finger) arrived Bridgewith which this trip is going to close because Chillida’s legacy is eternal, but his creations are finite. “At this point, as the artist is not, you cannot create new work. We are limited by the availability of work,” explains the artist’s grandson. Believe that Bridge It is “the most beautiful way to celebrate and end this stage and also to make bridge to give way to artists of new generations.” In the 2024 edition, held at the Barcelona City Council, Mikel Chillida took the floor to highlight the importance of rewarding “values such as commitment, dialogue and tolerance”, which were precisely “the engines in the life of Chillida” and made him who he is today. “It is important that that (journalistic) work continued so, so risky, so that it arrives at the people and we continue to have the tools to judge what is happening in society and so that the world is a better place, so that we are more tolerant,” he said before that auditorium.
Of the tune between Chillida and the country realizes the commission that the sculptor received to celebrate in 1996 the 20th anniversary of the newspaper. He created for the occasion a gravitation whose composition symbolizes a hand and replied in a sculpture with Chamota land, an oxide that is preserved in the newspaper and carries in the back the congratulation of the artist with his calligraphy: “1996 twenty anniversary the country”. In that commemoration, Chillida said: “That it flies and that weigh. Years later, the country wanted to honor the sculptor when he had already died and offered in 2007 his readers the opportunity to get an exclusive design tableware with the authenticity seal of Chillida-Leku.
Chillida conceived the artist as “a background corridor.” He has covered almost a 41 -year -old marathon linked to the Ortega and Gasset, and now gives Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, 68 years old) so that this becomes the aesthetic representative of the journalistic awards. Mikel Chillida argues that the relay “is very well thought out.” Both shared in 1986 (tenth anniversary of the newspaper) a gathering moderated by the then art critic Francisco Calvo Serraller in a radio program El País. Before they had already had some meetings and the relationship was more over the years.
In 2024, the Mallorcan painter visited Chillida Leku, where “spent many hours” contemplating the works and in the company of relatives of the Basque sculptor. “They had a good relationship. They shared the essence of art, fully linked to journalism, to seek what is not seen with the naked eye. Miquel and my grandfather They have in common that curiosity to know what is beyond the first look. ”Mikel Chillida believes that his grandfather would be delighted that Barceló is in charge to put his artistic seal to the most prestigious journalism awards in the country:“ The transfer (A Barceló) is very well symbolized by that bridge-bridge”, Judgment.