In the final stretch of Francoism, Agustín Ibarrola paid for his communist and anti-Franco militancy with prison, and was sent to the icy prison of Burgos. As he could not stop creating, he asked his fellow prisoners to give him the crumbs from their bread gnawings to build sculptures. After his second period in prison, in the mid-seventies he moved to a small house in Ibarrangelu, which was burned down by ultra-rightists. Ibarrola moved to the neighborhood of Oma, in Kortezubi, where he had the irresistible temptation to turn the trees of the forest into the support of his work. Two decades later, some of those trees were vandalized with the aim of appeasing their opposition to ETA terrorism. The extremisms could not silence Ibarrola, who said goodbye yesterday, at the age of 93, having left behind an immense work and a lesson in ethical commitment.
The artistic and vital journey of the Basque artist cannot be understood without paying attention to a biographical detail: he was born in a village in Basauri in 1930. That is, in an environment where the industrial world of the Bilbao conurbation was embraced and the rural world, and on the eve of the establishment of a dictatorship that harshly repressed the labor movement. The industrial landscapes of his work, the references to the labor movement, his sensitivity to nature or his political commitment are understood from the time and place in which he lived.
Obviously, his artistic career would also not be understood without paying attention to his references: the painting of Vázquez Díaz, the paintings of Aurelio Arteta in the Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao, his passage through Paris to understand the avant-gardes, his participation in Equipo 57, his immersion in Estampa Popular or his relationship with the artistic groups of the Basque School.
Mikel Onaindia, professor of Art History at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), places him as one of the “most important artists of the second half of the 20th century, not only in the Basque field but in the Spanish context”. It highlights, in summary, four major artistic stages. A first very influenced by Arteta and Vázquez Díaz, marked by figuration and worker and industrial landscapes. “Later, his foray into Equipo 57, a totally abstract and very experimental, very radical movement, was key. It is not purely formalistic; we see social and conceptual motivations”, he adds.
In the 1960s, Ibarrola’s foray into Estampa Popular led him to “a synthesis between political militancy and formal experimentation, especially geometrizing” and again with the “working class imagination” as a reference. His best-known stage, however, comes from the eighties, when he goes to sculpture or expanded painting: “He seeks the immersive experience of the viewer through large stones, mountains or works such as Oma forest”. Ibarrola becomes a very popular artist and, thanks to his commitment, also a symbol of the opposition to ETA.
In recent years, his health forced him to limit his public appearances. Three weeks ago, the Oma Forest reopened after an innovative “migration” process forced by the disease of some trees. Agustín stayed in his farmhouse, where from the balcony he enjoyed the sounds of nature or listening to the children of the neighboring farmhouse. He couldn’t go to the reopening event, although his family kept the most substantial thing: his work will live on.
