Stone and Sky is an audiovisual installation created by Víctor Erice around the motif of the monument to composer Aita Donostia, which stands on the peak of Mount Agiña (Lesaka, Navarra). The work of sculptor Jorge Oteiza and architect Luis Vallet de Montano, the monument was built at the request of the Aranzadi Sciences Society and opened on 20 June, 1959. It comprises a funerary stele by Oteiza and a chapel built by Vallet.
Located across from the video camera, watched by it day and night, the stele-sculpture and chapel have been subjected to a process of cinematization in which light, sound and time play a central role. The daytime view, illuminated from dawn to dusk by the sun (Eguzki), stands in contrast to the same view at night. The former offers images where nature coexists with the footprints of history (the works of man: the cromlech, Oteiza’s worn stele, Vallet’s chapel); the latter seeks to capture something of the metaphysical dimension of the scene bathed in the light of the moon (Ilargi or the light of the dead). In sum, the elements of what Oteiza called the “culture of the sky.”
The video installation consists of two large-format projections (8 m width) titled Day Space (11’03”) and Night Space (6’35”), and features an iconic piece from Aita Donostia’s catalogue – Andante doloroso, his last composition for piano, dated 1954 – performed by one of the finest scholars of his work, pianist Josu Okiñena (San Sebastian, 1971).
Stone and Sky was created and funded under the Video Arts and Digital Creation Program co-organized by the BBVA Foundation and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao.
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