“My Peine del viento sculpture is the solution to an equation which has elements instead of numbers: the sea, the wind, the cliffs, the horizon and the light. The steel shapes mingle with the forces and aspects of nature and converse with them. They are questions and affirmations. Perhaps they symbolise the Basque people and their country, sitting between two extremes, the point where the Pyrenees end and the ocean begins.”

This sculpture belongs to the artist’s most famous series and the one which had the greatest presence throughout his entire artistic career. He created the first peine (comb) in 1952 and the last in 1999. The most emblematic of the series is Peine del viento XV, installed next to the sea in the town of San Sebastian in 1977. The three colossal steel works in this monumental ensemble, embedded into the rocks, reach out into the unknown. Two of them appear to dialogue with one another, while the third looks towards the unreachable horizon. Created in 1990, the work shows Chillida’s continued fascination with this theme. He conceived multiple versions of a tool for trapping the wind and, consequently, that which is invisible.