“It is not the eye that sees but the hand that feels the space. IT is a relationship between filled and empty spaces, inside and outside, motion and rest.”
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Between 1970-74, Eduardo Ramirez Villamizar executed a series of monumental public sculptures in concrete that have come to be known as his most iconic. Beginning with Four Towers for the International Sculpture Symposium at the University of Vermont in 1970, then Columnade at Fort Tryon Park in 1973 and culminating in Bogota’s 16 Towers, Villamizar sought to create a distinct poetic space in these interactive geometric works, envisioning a space where the public could “live inside the sculpture...like one lives silence or clear sunny mornings.” (Frederico Morais, “Utopia y forma en Ramirez Villamizar,” in Ramirez Villamizar, Bogota 1984, p. 43)
The present work, which dates to this period, brings the compositional problems of these monuments to an intimate scale and the immaculate, purely poetic format of the white relief that was beloved Villamizar in the earlier part of his career. Frederico Morais best describes the ideas explored in this series: “Each separate tower has four faces which in turn give rise to four identical empty spaces. Should it be reduced to a graphic structure, we would have a line which rises and falls in an uninterrupted and everlasting motion. Together, the four towers reproduce the same situation ,the same poetic combination of filled and empty spaces, of upward and downward movements, of verticals and horizontals. These same towers taken as modules allow the observer to form the most varied visual equations, either by bringing them near or separating them, placing them one on top of the other or binding them together, or sequentially distributing them on the ground. In every imaginary situation, the right angle is absolute master.” (ibid., pp. 48-49)