The experimental painter and filmmaker José Antonio Sistiaga (San Sebastián, 1932) died on June 25, at the age of 91. Between 1968 and 1970 he made a feature film painted directly on celluloid that today continues to be an unavoidable reference worldwide. At a time when the Basque language was prohibited by the Franco dictatorship, he circumvented censorship and titled his hypnotic silent feature film in a non-existent language, but with obvious Basque resonances: “... ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren ... ”. The use of lowercase initials and ellipses already announced its extraordinary character to any potential viewer. It was a mobile and changing painting in 35 mm format, projectable on the big screen and lasting 75 minutes, made up of 108,000 successive small paintings, in perpetual flight, at a speed of 24 paintings per second.
This exceptional film painting is the great masterpiece of this genre. It represents the fullness of an experimental mode in which other authors have also successfully worked, such as the Canadian Norman McLaren, the New Zealander Len Lye or the American Stan Brakhage, better known internationally than he. In the Reina Sofía museum, Sistiaga is recognized as one of the main Spanish avant-garde filmmakers of the 20th century, along with José Val del Omar and the Buñuel-Dalí duo. On this point, at least, two directors of this museum, as different as Manuel Borja-Villel and Juan Manuel Bonet, have agreed. However, I believe that Sistiaga should have a more prominent place in the history of international art, as much as Chillida and Oteiza, with whom he formed the group Gaur (1965-1967).
The suggestion capacity of his expressionist feature film is based on an extraordinary synthesis of different and complementary visions. It is an abstract and lyrical work, adventurous and discovering, capable of using chance to enrich and transcend meaning. It evokes, like a fractal vision, the organic world as well as the cosmic scale. Matter appears in this changing painting as a nature in rapid transformation, and its forms can only be described in the form of a scientific and poetic paradox: an ocean of cracks, a wave-archipelago, a solar or cellular circle, a network of bubbles, apparitions that die, spectral and concrete spots.
The film ...ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren... can be seen as a river of transformations with a micro and macrocosmic aspect, evoking organic and astronomical landscapes while developing various modes of pictorial expression. In the history of art, it acts as a bridge between abstract expressionist painting and experimental cinema in its most visionary or even psychedelic aspect, and constitutes a fully achieved synthesis.
The duration and movement typical of cinema allowed Sistiaga to turn into a dance of matter and energy what he had painted on canvas a few years before, in exile in Paris. This feature-length painting not only meant a step further from what was achieved in the mid-twentieth century by Mark Tobey and Jackson Pollock, or also by Henri Michaux in his mescalinic drawings, but also anticipated other later contributions, such as the experimental painting by Darío Urzay, or the photographs by Manel Esclusa from the series “Jardí d'Humus” (2006).
Beyond ...ere erera baleibu icik subua aruaren... , José Antonio Sistiaga deserves a great retrospective of his painting and cinema. And his biography –with facets such as that of a smuggler– could lead to a good interior and exterior adventure film.
Three exhibitions. You can visit Sabine Finkenauer's exhibition in Palma Dotze (Vilafranca del Penedès) until July 30. Until August 19, that of Núria Güell in ADN (Barcelona). And until July 16 the anthology of Santi Moix in Espais Volart.
