Chillida 100 years The MACBA’s mural: “A sign of space”

Eduardo Chillida’s public sculpture has played a fundamental role in his artistic career. He made Barcelona, Mural G-333 in 1998, three years after the opening of the building that hosts MACBA. During his visit to Barcelona to supervise the installation of the work, he explained that when he saw the Museum for the first time, he thought the area around Richard Meier’s white building had a weak point: the dividing wall to one side of the building separating the Museum from the rest of the area. So, he decided to create a ceramic mural for this concrete wall. It is the first large ceramic mural made by the artist. The work was produced at the studio of Hans Spinner —a German ceramicist highly regarded by Chillida— in Grasse, in the South of France. After firing the plaques of refractory concrete that make up the mural at 1,300 degrees centigrade, Chillida painted them in copper rust and fired them again at 1,120 degrees. During this double-firing process the rust acquired a characteristic black colour and a textured surface. Far from to the traditional concept of ceramics, it is more of an architectural essay. Octavio Paz, an expert on Chillida, said that each of Eduardo Chillida's works is “a sign of space”.