20th-21st century. Spanish

The artist and experimental filmmaker José Antonio Sistiaga is a key figure in the transformation of Basque twentieth-century art. Since his days as a young artist he has undertaken an intense renewal of visual creation, both from the perspective of the artist—in terms of developing an experimental and innovative language—as well as the viewer—revising how the public looks at and perceives the artwork.

At a very young age, his passion for art, and in particular for painting, encouraged him to visit the Museo de San Telmo, in San Sebastian, to copy old masterpieces. In 1955 he moved to Paris, where he lived until 1961. The experience proved to be instrumental and revealing, for in those years he became friends with the artist Manuel Duque (1919-1998), whose work left a deep impression on the young Sistiaga. It was in Paris where he created his early works, initially influenced by the practiced by Vassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), before moving later towards the more impulsive principles of art informel. In 1958-1959, in Paris, he created his suite of black paintings, drawing his influence from and . Those works were the seed for what would become one of the major concerns in his career: the representation of movement and energy through the brushstroke. Those earlier drawings, executed with Indian ink on paper, evolved from an energetic and agitated vibration—reminiscent of the oscillation of works like Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) and Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)—towards a subtler motion evocative of Oriental calligraphy.

Throughout the 1950s, Sistiaga experimented with cinema, a circumstance which had the knock-on effect of shifting his painting towards abstraction and automatism. From that moment onwards, his work was sustained on a profound sense of freedom, irradiating a powerful energy that revealed a penchant for more automatic creative processes.

A champion and promoter of free and experimental education and of fostering creativity from childhood, in 1966, together with Jorge Oteiza (1908-2003), he supported the creation of the , a collective that advocated a complete renewal of Basque art. In 1968, after the group disbanded, he created a film that would cement his reputation as one of the most outstanding Basque filmmakers. The film, ...ere erera baleibu izik subua aruaren... —whose title used terms invented by the artist evocative of Basque phonetics—has a duration of 75 minutes and is made without cameras, created solely by direct intervening with paint on 35mm film. The result is an abstract psychedelic film whose images move before our eyes like a kind of visual melody.

Sistiaga is a multidisciplinary artist whose work oversteps the boundaries of the visual arts. His passion for creation led him to explore a variety of formats and creative worlds, including painting, music, experimental cinema and performance.

Works by José Antonio Sistiaga may be found at, among other institutions, the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao; Museo de San Telmo, San Sebastian; Museo de Bellas Artes, Vitoria; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and Cinémathèque Française, Paris.