Litologika

Angurreta Harrobia Arte Espazioa presents Litologika, a sculptural intervention by the artists Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum that has been conceived specifically for the old quarry in Mañaria (the Basque Country). The project offers a view on the quarry's industrial past through an intervention that engages with the natural landscape. 

Three large blocks of stone stand on a rocky terrace that has been carved out of the mountain, overlooking the Mañaria valley in the heart of Biscay. The artists have been working all summer to thoroughly polish a side of each of these blocks, until they acquired the refined sheen and texture of marble found in royal palaces and cathedrals.

Together, they form a monumental sample collection of the three most popular ornamental rocks to have been extracted from the Biscay province: Rojo Ereño (from the quarry of Arteaga), Negro Markina and the local Gris Mañaria.

The result of their work draws attention to the contrast between the polished, glossy surfaces and the rough texture of raw stone. Exposed to the elements, however, these surfaces will lose their shine, and in a matter of years, erosion will have transformed the appearance of the pieces once again.

This temporal dimension is fundamental to the artists, for whom the passage of time and the action of natural elements are integral to the work itself. Polishing, traditionally associated with the transformation of stone into an architectural or sculptural object, is here confronted by the inevitable process of erosion and a return to its natural state.

The artists have conceived their intervention specifically for this unique location: a once-industrial site, abandoned since the 1970s, that has been reimagined as a "stone garden" by sculptor Víctor Arrizabalaga, and where the legacy of the landscape with its traces of mining activity become the starting point for new creative expressions. Litologika thus draws on the history of the site to establish a poetic connection between geological time, monumental architecture and the industry of extractivism.

In the coming months the artists will further work on a publication that compiles a series of photographs of liturgical furniture and architecture in which Gris Mañaria has been used, such as baptismal fonts inside the churches of the region, or the marble pillars of the Chapel at the Royal Palace in Madrid.

These photos will be combined with a text: a kind of architectural guide that provides a critical, philosophical reflection on the ceremonial function of these objects and spaces in relation to the extractive logic of mining that has left its scars on the original landscape.

The intervention in Angurreta Harrobia Arte Espazioa was made possible with the generous support of the Mondriaan Fund.