With Balenciaga Artean, Eduardo Chillida and Cristóbal Balenciaga Reconnect

During Milan Design Week, Balenciaga inaugurated a new cultural initiative with Balenciaga Artean, an ongoing exhibition series exploring the space between art, fashion, and creative disciplines. The title derives from the Basque word artean, meaning “between”—a fitting framework for a project rooted in dialogue, connection, and shared heritage. For its debut edition, the House presents seven works by the late Eduardo Chillida (1924–2002), one of the most influential sculptors of the twentieth century, within its Via Montenapoleone flagship in Milan.

Widely celebrated for his monumental sculptures and philosophical investigations into space, gravity, and material, Chillida spent his career examining the invisible forces that shape our understanding of the world. Working in iron, steel, stone, paper, and wood, he developed a visual language that transformed emptiness into a material presence. His work shares an unexpected resonance with that of Cristóbal Balenciaga, the legendary couturier who similarly redefined volume, proportion, and form through fashion. Several works in the exhibition—including Homenaje a Balenciaga and Gravitación. Homenaje a Balenciaga—stand as direct tributes to the designer.

To mark the opening, Whitewall spoke with Mikel Chillida, Eduardo Chillida’s grandson and Director of Chillida Leku, the museum established by the artist himself. He shares insights into the friendship between the two Basque masters, the significance of Artean, and why this conversation remains as relevant today as ever.

“Artean speaks of the space that exists between two or more realities, but it also speaks of connection. It is not an indifferent void, but a place of relationship.”

A Shared Basque Vision

WHITEWALL: The exhibition highlights a creative dialogue between Eduardo Chillida and Cristóbal Balenciaga that began decades ago. Growing up within the Chillida family, what stories were passed down about their relationship, and why do you think their connection remains so relevant today?

MIKEL CHILLIDA: Our family context has always been extremely rich. My grandparents had eight children, and we are twenty-seven grandchildren. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I had lunch every Sunday at my grandparents’ house, and it was there, in a very natural way, that stories, daily work, intuitions and questions were shared.

In 1987, an exhibition dedicated to Cristóbal Balenciaga was held at the Palacio de Miramar in San Sebastián, and my grandfather created the image for that exhibition as a tribute to his friend, who had passed away fifteen years earlier. It was in moments like that that this friendship, this admiration and this shared search entered the family context I mentioned before: in the conversations that took place at home, around a table.

Given Balenciaga’s immense international relevance, it was not unusual for some anecdote related to Juanatxo, Juana Eguren, Eduardo Chillida’s grandmother, who also played an important role in the life of the couturier, to appear in conversation. Art met reality with enormous simplicity, and that, in the end, is something very complex. I believe this is why both remain such important references today: because their work comes from a deep truth, but expresses itself with a naturalness that continues to speak to us.

WW: Balenciaga has chosen the Basque word Artean, meaning “between,” as the title of this new series. How does this concept resonate with your grandfather’s work and his lifelong exploration of space, relationships, and the invisible forces that exist between forms?

MC: I think it is an extraordinary word. Artean speaks of the space that exists between two or more realities, but it also speaks of connection. It is not an indifferent void, but a place of relationship.

My grandfather always spoke about the importance of limits. A sculpture exists thanks to the limit between matter and space. It is not only about what we see, but also about what remains open, what breathes, what happens between forms.

Cristóbal Balenciaga, in another way, also worked from that same depth. He used the human body as a space, and his work enveloped it, accompanied it, respected it. The great connection between them does not lie only in visible matter, but in what that matter makes possible: space, body, air, presence.

For me, that is where the strength of Artean comes from: a word that in Basque can mean “between,” but also “in art.” That double reading contains the conversation between Chillida and Balenciaga very beautifully.

“I believe my grandfather especially admired Balenciaga’s ability to eliminate everything artificial, everything superfluous. Whatever does not need to be there, is not there.”

WW: Both Eduardo Chillida and Cristóbal Balenciaga were deeply rooted in Basque culture while achieving international recognition. How did their Basque identity shape their creative vision, and what common values do you see reflected in their respective practices?

MC: In this regard, I feel more comfortable speaking about Eduardo Chillida, for obvious reasons, than about Cristóbal Balenciaga. My grandfather’s work can only be fully understood through its context. It was born from the dark light of the Atlantic, from a very physical relationship with the land, the sea and gravity, and it also developed within an industrial environment, through a way of making that was deeply linked to work and tradition.

That rootedness, however, was never a limitation. On the contrary, it was the condition that allowed him to build a universal language. In a period such as the postwar years, when society was trying to rebuild itself, the emergence of such a material, essential and deeply rooted artist offered a place from which to think about the world again.

I believe that both of them shared very clear values: rigor, silence, discipline, respect for craft, exacting standards and an extraordinary ability to eliminate what was unnecessary. Neither of them needed to impose an explanation. Their work speaks through precision, through the right measure, through a beauty that does not seek to please, but to endure.

WW: Several works in the exhibition are direct homages to Balenciaga, including Homenaje a Balenciaga and Gravitación. Homenaje a Balenciaga. What inspired your grandfather to dedicate works to the couturier, and what aspects of Balenciaga’s creativity did he most admire?

MC: What undoubtedly moved my grandfather was admiration. Beyond the personal bond that may have existed between them, the deeper motivation behind his homages was always admiration.

Eduardo Chillida created homages to artists, writers, thinkers, philosophers, scientists and sportsmen. Emil Cioran, Jorge Guillén, Niki Lauda, Alberto Giacometti and René Thom are just some examples. He did not know all of them personally, but he admired them all.

With Cristóbal Balenciaga, he shared something essential: an absolute commitment to work. A pure, genuine, almost inevitable dedication. An artist works because something from deep within drives him to devote himself to a search that never ends. In that sense, Cristóbal and Eduardo were very much alike.

I believe my grandfather especially admired Balenciaga’s ability to eliminate everything artificial, everything superfluous. Whatever does not need to be there, is not there. That kind of purification requires enormous courage. And I am sure that courage made a deep impression on my grandfather.

Where Fashion Meets Sculpture

WW: Pierpaolo Piccioli has spoken about the parallels between Balenciaga’s approach to volume and Chillida’s investigation of space. From your perspective, where do fashion and sculpture most naturally intersect in the work of these two masters?

MC: They meet, above all, in interior space.

My grandfather’s work is solid, and it is solid precisely out of respect for space. A sculptor does not work only with material (steel, wood, stone, earth) but also with space. And if space is important, as everything important in life is, it must be allowed to show itself. That is why, when there is a space within Chillida’s work, that space has to be seen, entered, felt. It has to be accessible.

In the case of Cristóbal Balenciaga, his work envelops the human body. It caresses it, respects it and allows it to be. It does not submit the body to artifice, but builds around it a sensitive architecture.

That is where the two meet: in their absolute respect for the raw material of each artist. For Chillida, space. For Balenciaga, the body. And in both cases, form appears not as an imposition, but as the consequence of an essential search. In fact, if you look closely at the sculpture my grandfather created as a homage to Balenciaga, you realize that the true sculpture is made of space: a woman’s body emerges made in perfect space.

WW: This installation places Chillida’s sculptures and works on paper among Balenciaga’s contemporary collections rather than within a traditional museum setting. How do you think your grandfather would have reacted to seeing his work presented in this context?

MC: It is a complex question, because my grandfather cannot give us his opinion, which would be the fairest thing. Having said that, and from my own point of view, he was a man of great stature and enormous respect for the work of other professionals.

When a curator worked on one of his exhibitions, he would not interfere. He did not want to restrict or condition someone else’s perspective. On the contrary, he gave as much freedom as possible so that the works and the curator’s thinking could nourish one another.

For that reason, I believe the starting point would have been a very positive one. He also deeply valued the accessibility of his work, the possibility that it could reach as many people as possible. A respectful proposal, open to the public and built from a true admiration for Cristóbal Balenciaga, would, I believe, have interested him greatly.

Carrying the Legacy Forward

WW: As Director of Chillida Leku, you are responsible for preserving and sharing your grandfather’s legacy. How do collaborations like this one help introduce Eduardo Chillida’s work to new audiences who may encounter him for the first time through fashion?

MC: For me, there is one guiding principle: to bring my grandfather’s legacy closer to anyone with eyes, curiosity and the desire to venture into what they do not yet know.

The search for new audiences is constant, but it must always be done with respect and in good company. In that sense, Balenciaga has proven to be an ideal partner in bringing Chillida’s work closer to an audience that shares aesthetic concerns of a very high order, concerns that were also deeply present in my grandfather.

The contact with fashion can open up new ways of seeing. I had the opportunity to lead two visits to the exhibition with students from Istituto Marangoni, and I could see in their eyes a very special fervor and hunger. They were interested in the relationship between both artists, in space as a constructive material, in rootedness, in craft, in the way a form can contain a way of thinking.

When one perceives that, one understands that this kind of collaboration makes sense. Not because it simplifies the work, but because it opens it to new paths of interpretation.

WW: This exhibition marks the first chapter of Balenciaga Artean. Looking ahead, what do you hope visitors take away from this encounter between Eduardo Chillida’s art and the world of Balenciaga, and why is this conversation particularly meaningful in Milan during Salone del Mobile?

MC: I would like them to leave with hunger. A hunger to see what they may have looked at many times without truly stopping.

We live in a very fast world, where people often look, but do not see. Looking is easy. Seeing requires desire, will and effort. My grandfather belonged to that kind of person who knew that there is always something beyond what appears at first sight. And whoever encounters his work, in one way or another, senses that.

I think that if someone leaves this exhibition wanting to look better, that is already a great deal.

And the context of Salone del Mobile in Milan seems especially significant to me because it places this conversation in a territory where art, design, form, space and everyday life coexist. Two names that might seem to belong to another time, Chillida and Balenciaga, appear here as absolutely contemporary. In a context of limits and creation, both remain mold-breakers.

In the end, this exhibition demonstrates something that feels very important to me: that looking back, when done with depth, can be one of the most powerful ways of continuing to look forward.