'Teoría de la fluviomaquia' de Jorge Oteiza y una propuesta de estatuaria para la presa de Guadalén: El combate estético concebido como maquia fluvial para la realización de una ‘Avenida de los monstruos’ en un proyecto de ingeniería hidráulica de José Torán (1954)

Abstract

Jorge Oteiza wrote his essay Teoría de la fluviomaquia (‘Theory of riverfighting’) as part of his participation in a hydraulic engineering project by José Torán, who designed a dam and reservoir on the Guadalén river in Jaén, Spain, which were inaugurated in 1953. The typewritten practical essay is accompanied by a series of drawings, manuscripts, statues, and photographs: all items from his archive that help to elucidate his theoretical ponderings and statuary proposal for the ‘Avenue of monsters’ at the dam. The aesthetic combat between animal faces and water that he creates is intended to reinvent Iberian river myths using statues and is based on the notions of landscape and creative originality that he explored in his book Interpretación estética de la estatuaria megalítica americana (‘The aesthetic interpretation of American megalithic statues’) (1952) during the same period. The physical location of the project prompted him to depict a bull, a totemic figure in the Iberian Peninsula, and the Cretan Minotaur from classical mythology, using the machia to portray an aesthetic combat in a riverine setting.