Del laboratorio a la ciudad: Función política y revolucionaria en el proyecto estético de Jorge Oteiza

Abstract

This proposal questions the very possibility of a convergence between institutional politics and ‘the political’ in art, exemplified through the «Utopia and political failure in contemporary art» (1988), project that Oteiza understood as an articulation involving the artists and public policies in order to conduct a cultural renewal in the Basque Country. For this purpose, we’ll heed the meaning of ‘the political’ in Oteiza as an inherent condition of a creation where the artwork is the result of a process of personal ‘de-alienation’ (in laboratory) on one hand, and on the other, as the duty (and difficulty) of the artist to apply that transformer potential to the society (in the city), being decisive the role of the public institutions. In this sense, Oteiza repeatedly denounced any spectacular function of art as well as the lack of commitment shown by the Basque institutions that in the 80´s were more concerned in looking for the new cultural economies in the city than in citizenship emancipation. All this will be exemplified by analyzing a failed project where Oteiza collaborated, the cultural center for the Alhóndiga of Bilbao (1988), an art-architecture integration project that representing the sculptor’s last chance to carry out the Institute of Aesthetic Research which, based on the idea of 'aesthetic education', represented a fundamental element of the 'political' and 'revolutionary' dimen­sions of art in the city.