Logos, a Greek word designating language, speech or reason.
Logos: espacio de la palabra is the new temporary exhibition housed in gallery no. 4 of the Zabalaga Farmhouse. Designed for the 4th International Ontology Congress: from the gene to language: the state of art, the exhibition features a selection of sculptures, gravitations, engravings and drawings by Eduardo Chillida.
The nucleus of the exhibition is formed by Yves Bonnefoy, San Juan de la Cruz and Parmenides, all in the company of J. S. Bach:
Yves Bonnefoy’s “Le Miracle du Feu” is a book of poems illustrated by Eduardo Chillida, whose brilliant metaphors allude to classic subjects like life, death, the human being and absence... all seen from a point of view close to the sculptor.
The subject of spirituality directly refers us to the series of gravitations in black ink, drawings and thoughts, made by Eduardo Chillida in homage to San Juan de la Cruz and his mystical poetry.
“Saludo a Parménides” is the title of the photographed sculpture at the start of the exhibition and of its accompanying sketches on onion paper. The ensemble directs us towards Parmenides, whose language is as philosophical as it is poetic.
Music is also present in the exhibition as a feature not alien to poetry or philosophy. J. S. Bach therefore couldn’t be left out, and a series of gravitations pays tribute to the Baroque composer whose music always accompanied Eduardo Chillida in his studio.
The other sculptures in the exhibition include “Palacio de Música”, “De Música”, “Homenaje a Vivaldi”, “Peine del Viento”, or lurrak, plus “Casa del Poeta” and “Homenaje a Bach”.
" The reflection proposed by the 4th International Ontology Congress (Logos: from the gene to language) basically stands at the crossroads between disciplines like linguistics and biology. But this doesn’t mean that they ignore other subjects, such as the phenomenon of music. Although it is true that, by definition, there is no human society without language, it is also true that no-one has ever found a human community in which music doesn’t play an important part of its symbolic organization. Hence the weight of this exhibition by Eduardo Chillida, where words and music meet in the evocation of Parmenides. The point is that Parmenides is a thinker whose foundational text constitutes a poem (an aspect so often lost in translation), i.e. something which in some way or another always refers us to the question of whether or not language (reflexive included) originally took the shape of song.
Parmenides ... and not too far from him Heraclites, as indicated by the impression achieved by the sculptor via the splendid metaphors with which Yves Bonnefoy celebrates the miracle of fire: evocation of a time when, given the disappearance of the distance between near and far, the gods brought children closer to one another and the conviction that there is being was supported by the fact that light can diminish without losing clarity. "
Víctor Gómez Pin
