Monumental ambition: understanding Jorge Oteiza's innovative sculpture
The goal of this work is to consider local understandings of the modernist sculpture of Jorge Oteiza at the basilica of Aranzazu in Guipuzcoa in the Basque Country. Extensive contextual background is provided, including the artists oeuvre, a review of critical literature pertaining to the artist, art anthropological approaches to the topic, as well as two case studies detailing Oteiza’s central artistic concepts. | draw attention to the relationship between the artist's technique called disoccupation and the atmosphere of artistic censorship existent in Spain during the 1950s and beyond. | note the uptake of the concept among the Spanish intelligentsia from the late 1950s onwards. | go on to investigate the hitherto under investigated genesis and application of this technique. | then analyse art responses at Aranzazu inside salient historical processes there. | contrast official understandings promulgated there and local understanding relating back to the period of installation. In a unique anthropological contribution, this work provides insights into the creation, circulation and local understanding of art created during Francoist Spain. Furthermore, making unique contributions to the anthropological study of modernism in Europe, | note different types of extant statues; contribute to understanding modernist artist's appropriation of pre-Colombian art; describe the production of an innovative monumental art /n situ. In distinction to previous approaches, | show how this sculpture developed out of a critique of naturalism, and the creation of new ideal concepts like open wall and vacio. | present an elemental type reception of Oteiza’s art at Aranzazu that directly relates to the creation of ideals.
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