Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Volume 30 Issue 1 Rethinking Spain From Across the Seas Article 5 1-1-2006 Jorge Oteiza's Modernity and His Latin American Travels Marina Pérez de Mendiola Scripps College Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the Modern Literature Commons, and the Spanish Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation de Mendiola, Marina Pérez (2006) "Jorge Oteiza's Modernity and His Latin American Travels ," Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature: Vol. 30: Iss. 1, Article 5. https://doi.org/10.4148/2334-4415.1615 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Jorge Oteiza's Modernity and His Latin American Travels Abstract Along with Eduardo Chillida, Jorge Oteiza is one of the best-known Basque sculptors of his generation. Although many scholars have written on Oteiza's significant contribution ot the field of sculpture, and have analyzed his theories on the meaning of art, very few take into consideration Oteiza's 13 years in Latin America, much less acknowledge that these years had a decisive impact on his art and particularly on his critical essays and poetry. In this essay, I explore how Oteiza's stay in Latin America contributed to his reevaluation of the avant-garde movements in Europe and Latin America, and how it led him to redefine his elationshipr to progress, science, reason and nature, space and time, ethics, and national art.