The Belly of Architecture (Space and Landscape) - Changing ...

Space, a concave, hollow entity is carved out in matter or defined by screens in respect to the endless
space.
Cutting out a space in Mount Tindaya means creating a space, between heaven and earth, from which you
can contemplate the horizon and connect to the light and the architecture created by light itself.
Enclosing a space in the sculpture Elogio de l’Horizonte in Gijon means building a room of air and wind,
which relates spectators with the distant view of the sea, with the horizon.
Kosme de Barañano explains: “Chillida knows that the material of a sculptor is space, as is void and that
only both make it possible to construct “full” places; and he knows that the material of music is sound and
silence... The issue, which is fundamental in sculpture, of creating a place extracting matter but replacing it
with space, is the basic idea behind the project of Mount Tindaya... A sculpture which is not set in a place
but whose empty space emanates the place”.
This concept of “charged space”, of “void full of tension and vibrations” is at the centre of Chillida’s spatial
investigation: a void to live in, to dwell.
Chillida knows that the homogeneous and objective space of geometry has a meaning only in relation to the
body’s orientation in space, from which, by abstraction, it is built. Transiting, flowing, passing are decisive.
Limit, horizon, void and space are two-dimensional or immaterial entities, undertaking to set up meaningful
relations, to make tension vibrate and be perceived in void, in silence; they undertake to interpret and attach
a meaning to places by means of building simple scaffolds to look at, to read and interpret nature and the
world.
Building does no longer coincide with laying one stone on top of the other or inserting objects in a space;
building means constructing space, the immaterial form of space.
Chillida's spatial geometry reinterprets geometry in the direction of the concept of relation and, in many
ways, is based on the concept of Raum developed by his friend Heidegger, the philosopher.
A space where man is, the geometry of which is not only perceived but also felt.
This is why it is a space to live in.
Giuseppe Penone: Breathing the Shadow
For Giuseppe Penone, man is an integral part of nature. The point, therefore, is not so much using nature
as material for the work but to plunge oneself and the work in nature itself, in its life.
This is therefore work of art conceived as a “vital” process, in which the time factor is fundamental.
As a consequence of this idea of an identification between man and nature, an extraordinary importance is
given to the senses as a means to acquire knowledge and of artistic expression.
Through his senses, i.e. the body, man can approach nature, penetrate it, interfere directly with the vital
processes, influence nature and be influenced by it.
The “sensualist conception” of art proposed by Penone expresses itself in the so called “tactile look", i.e. in
the supremacy of touch as the essential and primary form of knowledge of nature, definitely having priority
over sight.
Fingerprints and the skin are the way by which touch gets to know nature: not by chance a very large part of
Penone’s artistic production works on these two elements of the surface of things. This is not done in a
“superficial” way, though, but looking on the surface for the deep traces of matter and for the decisive
factors in the “conformation” of forms.
It is easy to derive from the concept of “tactile look” the idea, only seemingly paradoxical, of a sculpture to
be perceived with closed eyes, in a sort of “braille” language of sculpture, which is also a lofty way to bring
together the senses and inner life.
Through the deep look of tactile perception you can get to the deep strata of the human soul: memory, grey
matter.
Through the filter of skin and eyelid, the (deep) world of the inside and the world of the outside (landscape)
connect and dialogue with each other, in a way which is less direct and explicit than the one you usually
attain through sight.
In a way, it is like the difference between a photograph and an x-ray. The relationship is biunique and
specular: from the inside to the outside but also from the outside to the inside.
The sensory relationship works therefore also by mirroring.
There is a short distance between reflection/mirroring and projection: not only does the eyelid act as a filter
and the lens as a mirror but the skull becomes a projection box of landscape and of the world.
The body surface (skin, eyelid, the inside of the skull), in its essence of two-dimensional membrane,
becomes therefore an interface in the relationship between man and the world, between man and nature.
In this perceptive process, the artistic sensibility of “thinking with one’s body”, of transferring “sensuality” or
“sensitivity” into the grey matter, i.e. thoughts and reasoning faculty, develops.
Through this process Penone manages to give and convey a rational essence to a work which completely
originates from the senses.