Néstor Basterretxea

(Bermeo, Biscay, 1924 ─ Fuenterrabía, Guipuzcoa, 2014)

Aker Beltz

1972

Basque Cosmogonical Suite

cast and patinated bronze

205 x 56 x 30 cm

Inv. no. E00226



Throughout the 1970s, Néstor Basterretxea gradually redirected the focus of his concerns to the identity of the Basque people. His main interest centred on combining a constructivist language and Basque subject matters, always with a didactic purpose.

This is the core idea behind his Basque Cosmogonical Suite, a body of work of eighteen figures based on José Miguel de Barandiaran’s Diccionario ilustrado de mitología vasca [Illustrated Dictionary of Basque Mythology], coupled by a close observation and rethinking of the popular motifs, objects and folk customs referenced in the pieces.

Basterretxea’s express intention was “to interpret through images and new faces the notions implicit in the original worldview which gave rise to our mythology, like a primal metaphysics: to provide a tangible appearance—rendered in a contemporary aesthetics—to the mental and physical universe of our earliest gestures as a tribe, which would be materialised through a miracle of survival into the reality of our unique Basque people”.

He first created the series in oak wood, a material loaded with meaning, as the oak is a highly emblematic tree in the Basque Country. He later rendered other versions in patinated bronze, like the work in hand. This multiplicity in Basterretxea’s work can be traced to handcrafted and industrial production processes that associate art practice more with intellectual work than to the actual material process itself. Other aspects of modernism present in this particular project—often considered the peak of his career—are its particular gaze on pre-historic and non-Western art and a faith in art’s ability to transform reality.

In this work, Basterretxea depicts the Aker Beltz, a genie or devil in the shape of a black billy-goat, with healing powers and a protector of animals. According to the aforementioned illustrated dictionary, it is believed that it was worshiped in witches’ covens, secret ceremonies based on a rejection of Christian religion and the prevailing social system.

Formally speaking, this is one of the most figurative sculptures in the whole series: it reveals a dark and almost two-dimensional human figure, with both arms stretched upwards, one of them somewhat menacingly holding an object. Like the other works in the suite, it tries to find a balance between the purity and rigour of
and the expressiveness of a totemic figure. In this way, it eschews pure formalism in order to create a committed art charged with meaning. The recovery of his roots was the starting point for this new phase in Basterretxea’s art, which also coincided with a period marked by the growth of a shared sense of identity among Basque people.