Agustín Ibarrola

Agustín Ibarrola - UNTITLED

Artist Biography: He was born in Bilbao in 1930 into a working-class family. Very soon he entered the School of Arts and Crafts in Bilbao and in 1948 he held his first solo exhibition. As a result of this exhibition in the capital of Biscay, he moved to Madrid and joined the workshop of Daniel Vázquez Díaz. From a very young age he was interested in combining the Basque pictorial tradition with the avant-garde currents of Contemporary Art. In 1950 he was invited to participate in the work on the Basilica of Arantzazu (Gipuzkoa). He was commissioned to make a mural for the portico, although it never materialized. He travelled to Paris in 1956, where he worked in various jobs and met those who, together with him, would form Team 57. He returned to Bilbao in 1961 and joined the group of engravers of Estampa Popular, in the Basque section. As a member of the Communist Party, he was arrested in 1962 and tried by a military court to nine years in prison. Inside the prison, he continues to paint and draw, although he cannot sign the works or exhibit them outside. A year later, Appel for Amnesty organized an exhibition in London, Paris, Belgium, Germany and Italy with these "illegal" works. In 1965 he was released and embarked, along with other Basque artists, on the creation of the artistic groups of the Basque School, Gaur, Emen, Orain and Danok. In 1967 he was arrested again and imprisoned in Basauri (Bizkaia) until 1969. He participated in various artistic events such as the Pamplona Art Encounters in 1972 and the Venice Biennale in 1976. In May 1975 the extreme right set fire to his farmhouse-studio, located in Gametxo (Ibarrangelua). He began the 1980s as a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country, although five years later he was dismissed, theoretically, for lacking a degree. In 1987 the Ministry of Culture and the Madrid City Council organised a major anthological exhibition that was repeated shortly afterwards in Bilbao and Zaragoza. In 1993 he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts along with the members of Team 57. In the 1980s, Ibarrola began a period of experimentation with the use of a variety of materials such as railway sleepers, cardboard, wood, corten steel, and also began the period that would lead him to carry out a long series of artistic interventions in nature. This experimentation, sustained over time, has given rise to projects that transcend the rigid boundaries of styles and trends such as "The Forest of Oma (Kortezubi, Bizkaia)", (1982-2003), the disappeared painted stones in the sinkholes of Tremoia, 1993 (Arteaga, Bizkaia), the intervention "Stones and Trees" (1999) in Allariz (Ourense), "The Cubes of Memory" (2001-2006) in the port of Llanes (Asturias), the installation composed of more than 80 polychrome sleepers carved at the top of the Prosper Haniel – Ruhr Coal Hill in Bottrop (Germany) (2002), or the Painted Stones in Garoza (2005-2009, Muñogalindo, Avila). During the first decade of the 21st century, he donated numerous sculptures in homage to the Victims of Terrorism (Santander, Andoain, Ermua, Vitoria, Logroño, Alicante and Murcia) that constitute a wide and varied catalogue of sculptures in public spaces. His anti-terrorist activism meant that he had to live under escort from 2000 to 2012. The Oma Forest suffered two ETA terrorist attacks in May 2000 and March 2003. Ibarrola continues his artistic activity in the studio of his farmhouse in Oma (Kortezubi, Bizkaia), producing works (paintings, sculptures, sculpture Prints) both small and large format, researching with all kinds of materials in permanent multidisciplinary transfer and configuring a real laboratory of ideas, languages and own expressions.