Iñaki Marcos Bueno - ...lo profundo es el aire (2024)

Lo profundo es el aire (The depth is the air) (1996) by Eduardo Chillida is a work that materializes deep poetic and philosophical concepts. Inspired by the verse of poet Jorge Guillén, Chillida uses air and emptiness as creative materials in a series of sculptures that explore space and the depth of the intangible. For Chillida, air, far from being nothingness, is a profound and resonant entity—a force that gives form meaning and connects with a perception beyond the visual. His sculptures invite viewers to observe the importance of empty space, which paradoxically fills the pieces with significance and mystery.

Just as in a piano, where resonance is produced in the empty space within the instrument and expands through the air via its vibrating strings, the void in Chillida's work is not a mere absence. When resonating, the piano vibrates and fills the space with sound waves that move through the air, finding echo and resonance within us. The air becomes the vehicle for that resonance, as invisible as it is essential, extending the sound and giving it life beyond the instant. Chillida seeks this same resonant quality in his sculptures: the emptiness around his iron or steel forms echoes their presence, and that deep air is not perceived as mute space but as an invisible vibration that completes the work.

Just as resonance in a piano depends on how air receives and projects the sound, in Chillida's sculptures, empty space becomes a "material" that intensifies the presence of the work and connects it with the viewer. In both cases, an extension is experienced, whether of sound or form, coming alive in that "deep air." Chillida, like a musician, relies on the subtlety of the intangible; his sculptures, though solid, are completed in the void, resonating with our sense of depth like an echo of what cannot be seen but can indeed be felt.

Live at Orpheus Instituut (Ghent, Belgium) in its World Premier