If there was only one truth, it wouldn’t be possible to make a hundred sculptures using the same subject.
Pablo Picasso

He arrives with a loud burst of warm laughter. He sits down, takes off his hat, shakes his head, adjusts his glasses, screws up his eyes and without even stopping for breath starts to tell frenzied stories: memories, enthusiasm, anger, adventures, stories, reports about things read, comments, debates and mythology, often Basque and therefore universal. He talks about the sea and fishing, his latest escapade to the land of bulls and matadors’ costumes, the mountains he likes to stride along, a canoe on unknown lakes, the Basque hills with short grass and birds of prey overhead, the paths drawn by sheep without shepherds or pottoks without masters, the right to land, the names of trees, the colours of the forest, the clouds, the rivers and friends who have passed away whose secret memories lie hidden behind certain rocks … because it’s living life which inspires him and never nostalgia.

From diversions to pilgrimages, from departures to returns, from backwards to shortcuts, we always come back to the sculptures. The sculpture he has just finished or installed, the one he is currently giving shape to and which is no more than a sketch in a notebook, the one whose cast iron or assembly he supervises, the one which he polishes after the final cut. He often visits those which are in a garden in Urt, a park in Arcangues, Saint Pée or at the far end of the Adour facing the ocean. Or those which are at my home, under the window, which change with the reflection of the rain or the light and at the foot of which the cat sleeps quietly.

He watches them age and become part of their surroundings. Zigor also likes to talk about others: other sculptors, other creators, their works and also about what surrounds them, friends, enemies, battles and commitments; about the consistency needed to last, survive and assert the strength of a non negotiable work.

Of course Zigor like all of us follows his own path. But he also draws it, which is not something everyone is able to do. And at each turning point, at each junction, he looks over his shoulder and greets those far away who have taken another direction or who life has stopped. The past is there and can be neither wiped away nor weighed, but which the artist uses before continuing his journey. Zigor the walker, Zigor the story-teller, Zigor the sculptor. We revolve around them and each aspect comes to life, joining with the others, but speaking its own language, weighing our relation with weight and emptiness, with fullness and space, touching and caressing, at our intimate centre of gravity.

Sculpture, which may be the only art which reminds us that things, all things, whether in flesh, wood, bronze, steel, lead or feathers, are inevitably attracted towards the centre of the earth, is the art of gravity. However, in an incredible paradox, the sculptor sometimes defies the laws of physics …

Isabelle Darigrand