Asins, Oteiza, Palazuelo. Giving Form to the Transcendent

Artium Museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz brings together an exceptional exhibition featuring three essential figures in Spanish 20th-century abstraction: Jorge Oteiza, Pablo Palazuelo, and Elena Asins.

Under the title Giving Form to the Transcendent, the exhibition establishes a dialogue between their trajectories, marked by geometry, structure, and the pursuit of the ineffable. From Oteiza’s energetic sculpture to Palazuelo’s transgeometry and Asins’ visual algorithms, the exhibition explores how these artists transformed notions of space, form, and spirituality into works that transcend the visible. Curated by Fernando Golvano, this project is part of the Bilduma Hau Collection. Elementary Movements (1950–2000) and will be on view from March 28 in Gallery A0 of the museum.

Artium Museoa, a leading institution in modern and contemporary art in the Basque Country, hosts this exhibition as a “case study” within its permanent collection. Its aim is to offer a profound look into geometric abstraction through three artists who challenged the conventions of figurative representation to enter new symbolic, mathematical, and mystical dimensions.

The exhibition, accessible from March 28, 2025, allows visitors to explore key works from the three trajectories, including sculptures, drawings, prints, artist books, and digital pieces. It is structured as a visual journey through the artists’ main formal and spiritual obsessions: the void, the series, harmony, the law of change, or the golden ratio.

Jorge Oteiza: the void as energy

Sculptor, thinker, and cultural agitator, Jorge Oteiza (1908–2003) is a key figure in the renewal of 20th-century sculpture. His formal research led him to strip sculpture of all figurative mass in order to turn it into void — a receptive and energetic space. Influenced by Malevich’s Suprematism and spatial theories, he developed concepts such as the “Malevich unit” and the “empty cuboids.” In 1959, he abandoned sculpture as a declaration of the culmination of his experimental process. The exhibition features key pieces such as *Binary Macla with the Malevich Matrix* (1973) and *Construction with Three Empty Cuboids* (1958), examples of his poetics of the intangible.

Pablo Palazuelo: geometry in metamorphosis

After abandoning architecture in the 1940s, Pablo Palazuelo (1916–2007) immersed himself in an introspective search based on geometry as a tool of revelation. Influenced by Paul Klee and Islamic art, he developed a constantly evolving “transgeometry” with musical and alchemical echoes. In works such as *Orto V* (1969), *The Number and the Waters* (1978), or *Monroy I* (1974), one can perceive his intention to translate the hidden into visual patterns that suggest a universal order. Palazuelo was also an avid reader of mystical and scientific treatises, which nourished his visual imagination.

Elena Asins: algorithms of transcendence

A pioneer of computer-based art in Spain, Elena Asins (1940–2015) masterfully integrated mathematics, logic, and philosophy into a highly refined visual language. She participated in the seminars of the Computing Center at the Complutense University in the 1960s and 70s, and was a key figure in conceptual art. Her works are based on serial structures and logical relationships, as seen in the *Canons*, *Scales*, and *Menhirs* series, and are developed across media such as drawing, sculpture, video, and installation. For Asins, art was a form of knowledge — a means to communicate concepts, not emotions. The exhibition includes key pieces such as *Verticales* (1976) and *Geometría negra* (1975), where line and void engage in dialogue with the idea of infinity.

The works

The selection of works included in Giving Form to the Transcendent offers insight, through concrete examples, into how Oteiza, Palazuelo, and Asins gave visual form to their ideas. Each exhibited piece embodies a key stage in their aesthetic and conceptual explorations, ranging from sculptural structures to visual algorithms. Below is a representative sample of the exhibition as a whole.

• Jorge Oteiza. Construction with Three Empty Cuboids, 1958. Iron. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Jorge Oteiza. Binary Macla with the Malevich Matrix, 1973. Stone carving. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Jorge Oteiza. Ternary Macla with the Malevich Matrix, 1974. Stone carving. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Jorge Oteiza. Funerary Stele Indicating the Proximity of Lemoniz, 1973. Stone carving. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Jorge Oteiza. Preliminary Version of Homage to Mallarmé, 1958. Iron welding. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Marin VII, 1995. Pencil and ink on paper. Courtesy of Fundación Pablo Palazuelo.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Orto V, 1969. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Monroy I, 1974. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. Black Geometry, 1975. Ink drawing on cardboard. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. White Geometry, 1975. Ink drawing on cardboard. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. Oblique Rhythm – Negative, 1975. Ink drawing on cardboard. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. Oblique Rhythm – Positive, 1975. Ink drawing on cardboard. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Jorge Oteiza. The Law of Changes, 1990. Etching on paper. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. Verticales, 1976. Ink drawing on cardboard. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. Verticales, 1976. Ink drawing on cardboard. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Gothic Variant, 1965–1970. Screenprint on paper. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Levante II, 2000. Steel. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Jorge Oteiza. Light Clock, 1973. Carved alabaster. Collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country.
• Elena Asins. Dolmens, 1995. Polychrome wood. Artium Museoa Collection, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Ipiña-Bidaurrazaga Collection.
• Elena Asins. Menhirs, 1995. Ink drawing on cardboard. Artium Museoa Collection, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Ipiña-Bidaurrazaga Collection.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Grey Tempo, 1958. Lithograph. Courtesy of MV Collection.
• Pablo Palazuelo. The Number and the Waters, 1978. Gouache on paper. Courtesy of Fundación Pablo Palazuelo.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Music III, 1978. Lithograph. Courtesy of MV Collection.
• Elena Asins. Menhirs, 2000. Iron. Courtesy of Galería Kur Donostia.
• Elena Asins. Menhirs, 2002. Crystal. Courtesy of Galería Altxerri Collection, San Sebastián.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Untitled, c. 1965. Tempera on panel. Artium Museoa Collection, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Ipiña-Bidaurrazaga Collection.
• Pablo Palazuelo. Lunariae VI, 1972. Gouache on paper. Courtesy of Fundación Pablo Palazuelo.
• Elena Asins. SCALES Series, c.1972. Tempera on panel. Artium Museoa Collection, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Ipiña-Bidaurrazaga Collection.
• Elena Asins. A Concept of One Structure, 1994. Drawing on paper. Courtesy of Ostolaza-Paraiso Collection.
• Elena Asins. Dolmen, c. 1998–2004. Granite. Courtesy of Ostolaza-Paraiso Collection.

Opening Hours and Visit

The exhibition can be visited during Artium Museoa’s regular opening hours: Tuesday to Friday, from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.; weekends, from 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. non-stop. Closed on non-holiday Mondays. The museum is located at Francia Kalea 24, Vitoria-Gasteiz.

An experience to explore the invisible

Giving Form to the Transcendent is not just an exhibition about three major names in modern Spanish art, but an invitation to delve into territories where form becomes spiritual language, where geometry transforms into intuition, and where reason reveals glimpses of the beauty of the invisible. More information on the Artium Museum website

More information about the exhibition

Event: Asins, Oteiza, Palazuelo. Giving Form to the Transcendent
Location: Artium Museoa
Curator: Fernando Golvano
Event date: Friday, March 28, 2025