Asier Mendizabal’s artistic research is rooted in the complexity of Basque culture, which has had a strong tradition of abstract sculpture in the twentieth century, as well as one of rebellion predicated on an ongoing fight for the recognition of its cultural particularity and territorial entity (comprising land in both Spain and France). The artist constantly goes back and forth between references to those two constitutive elements, using them both from a formal and political standpoint, reflecting upon the meaning of forms and their potential subversive nature.

The five photographs that form Untitled (Forcole) epitomize the nature of the artist’s work: this series of dramatically staged close-ups pictures of a forcola—the rowlock encountered on Venetian gondolas—explores the sculptural quality of an object whose design is entirely predicated by its use. Yet, removed from its context, it resembles an abstract modern sculpture.