AS #5 de Asier Mendizabal

The Artist Series #5 edition, conceived by the winner of the II Biennial Prize for Monumental Art of the Fundación Otazu, Asier Mendizabal (Ordizia, 1973). His winning work, Crudo Zarzo (2018), is located next to our 12th-century Ermita de San Esteban. It consists of a concrete basket woven with hazel rods, an elaborate formwork that takes the shape of the branch pattern and creates a texture between the organic and the geometric. The lines, perfectly parallel to the vineyards, remind us that the landscape we tend to naturalize as an essential symbol is, to a greater extent than we intuitively perceive, a cultural landscape. Just like the way the Crudo Zarzo sculpture was made, the label bears the mark of a process. What can be seen in this visual translation of the artwork is that every detail of the label is understood as the result of a process, where the form is not something anticipated or designed, but the product of a series of actions.