Life Forms 304 , 2003

Life Forms 304 is an installation specifically conceived for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao's collection. The piece takes part of its title from the space for which it was designed, Gallery 304. The room as a space to live in is defined by a mural that covers the entire wall with a line, like a discontinuous corridor, on which drawings/objects hang while dialectically fighting for their space. In the centre there is a sculpture that looks inviting from the front, but this impression crumbles as soon as one glimpses the side view, where a multitude of angles, tensions, and forces appear, giving the impression that the construction maintains a precarious but studied balance. Irazu rejects the idea of space as a mere container in which objects can be placed, conceiving of it rather as a mediating element between the viewer and the work of art.

Life Forms 304 insists on the duality of object and setting, which are here clearly differentiated. The constructive element that occupies the central part of the space rises up like the skeleton of a superficial and relatively unstable protective element. The combination of metal, wood, plywood, and colored elements translates the logic of the assembly, a constructive and necessarily architectural principle.