Eduardo Chillida

For his second appearance at Skulptur Projekte, Eduardo Chillida again showed a sculpture of welded Corten steel, this time in the courtyard in front of the Westfälisches Landesmuseum. Occupying an approximately square surface area, its variously branching and truncated steel struts formed a cuboid with rounded corners. The permeable steel framework recalled a cage, whose openings allowed visitors to walk unobstructed through the sculpture and invited children to climb over it.

Chillida designed La jaula de la libertad for a square in front of a new conference centre in Trier.¹ Since construction work on the future site had still not been completed, thus delaying the installation of his sculpture until spring 1998, Chillida decided to present the work first in Münster. This allowed him to take up the idea that he had not implemented in 1987, namely to bring a large and “alien” steel sculpture to Münster.

The choice of a site for the work crucially influenced the artistic process.² Besides its creation of three-dimensional space, in its interim location La jaula de la libertad formed a correspondence with the Zwei Supraporten by Josef Albers above the museum entrance.

Daniel Friedt

¹ Cf. Martin van der Koelen and Dorothea van der Koelen (eds.), Eduardo Chillida. Kunst und Architektur. Ein Projekt in Trier, Munich and Mainz, 1998.

² On the significance of the choice of location for Chillida, see also Sabine Maria Schmidt, Eduardo Chillida. Die Monumente im öffentlichen Raum, Mainz and Munich, 2000.