Operación H
H Operation
1963
audio archive
image not available online

In 1963, the businessman Juan Huarte Beaumont, art patron, collector and founder of X Films, a film production company based in Madrid, invited the Basque artists Néstor Basterretxea and Jorge Oteiza to make a promotional short about his companies. Certain conditions were attached to the commission: the artists were each to present finished scripts without any contact with each other about them. Huarte chose Néstor Basterretxea's script, and Basterretxea directed the film, which was given the title Operación H in postproduction.

X Films, which produced other avant-garde experimental films such as the cinematic debuts of José Antonio Sistiaga and Rafael Ruiz Balerdi, had close relations at that time with Jorge Oteiza, who came up with a number of ideas for films, though his main contribution to the medium took the form of theory and inspiration. Other contributors to the production of Operación H besides Oteiza included the musician Luis de Pablo and the French director Marcel Hanoun. Oteiza features in the credits as sculptor and editor. A few years before, in 1957, Oteiza had won the International Sculpture Prize at the IV Sao Paulo Biennial, where he had presented a series of sculptures under the title of Operación H in homage to Juan Huarte, who had financed the whole project.

Operación H was produced according to film industry rules and had never been claimed as a work of art until now, thanks to the efforts of Peio Aguirre and Leire Vergara (D.A.E. Donostiako Arte Ekinbideak) in Manifesta 5, (Donostia-San Sebastián, 2004) under the title Film Ideal Siempre (Always Ideal Film) . The film was used as an internal promotion document by the Huarte Group, as well as being sent to short film competitions. The nature of the commission is completely at odds with the aesthetic results obtained, as Operación H is a work created in enormous creative and expressive liberty. The film, which can be classified under structural cinema, explores the material nature of the cinema, using it as a sculptural tool and a metaphor for the industrial forms of production and distribution. Operación H questioned existing ideas about the traditional exhibitions and manifestations of the day. Subject to the passing of history and due to the organic situation of the moment, the film gives a glimpse of a creative moment in the Basque Country in the 1960s. It is a production determined by a social situation that fostered ways of going about things that were independent of official policies, and by the collective energy generated by many collective initiatives.

The texts of the MACBA web draw on previous documentation. Please let us know if you find any errors.
original title
Operación H
registration number
R.2461
date
1963
fonds
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
media
35 mm film transferred into video, colour, sound, 11 min 49 s
Copyright
© Nestor Basterretxea
translated title
H Operation
year of acquisition
2004
type of object
Audiovisual recording
credits
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
original title
Operación H
translated title
H Operation
registration number
R.2461
date
1963
year of acquisition
2004
fonds
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
type of object
Audiovisual recording
media
35 mm film transferred into video, colour, sound, 11 min 49 s
credits
MACBA Collection. MACBA Foundation
Copyright
© Nestor Basterretxea
Industry
Motion pictures
Exhibitions
Basque Country

images

8 images
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
OBRA TITLE
OBRA TITLE
yyyy-YYYY
ARTIST NAME
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_001_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_002_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_003_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_004_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_005_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_006_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_007_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Veure el fitxer digital:[2461_008_pub / Imatge] Operación H
this content can only be
watched in the library
of macba.
Enquiry the MACBA Library for more information on the work or artist.
If you want to make a work loan request, go to colleccio@macba.cat.
If you want the image of the work in high resolution, you can send an image loan request.

contact

for more information, please contact us through the following links
for further information
colleccio@macba.cat

for further information
Image loan request