Sometimes it's a clear reference and matter surprises you: two turkey feathers metallized on a marble holder. The 2017 Antton Abbadia Prize was awarded to Ibon Sarasola. On other occasions there are no clear references, you only have before your eyes matter and form, and then it is much more beautiful, enigmatic.

Xare Álvarez Berakoetxea (Donostia-San Sebastián, 25 June 1990) is a young woman. It started with a firm step: He has taught it in Paris, in Bilbao, in many places; he has received scholarships, prizes here and there. He received an honorary mention in the program of Noveles Artists of Gipuzkoa 2016, with the work you can see in: 15/32.

The viewer approaches the work and the question arises: What is this? It's like a heavy stone, attached to the wall by a solid steel arm, to the point where the arm becomes part of the piece. It looks like a fingerprint, a stone that has come to know where, a fossil, a fingerprint. What is it about? The enigma is underway. Then you have the title, 15/32, a symbol, a code, right?

Explanation makes it a more beautiful enigma. The title speaks, as always, of the work, but it does not want to give a context to the work, a reference out of work, a hint to connect the spectators with something else, contrary to what often happens. Instead, it refers to the core of the work, it refers to the process, to the matter: 15 liters of water, 32 kilos of cement. That's it.

And the viewer leaves the exhibition and realizes that the work of art is the footprint of matter, that art may bring us the very materiality of things to extremes, things that most of the time our eyes don't see, a little longer. One more time to see the traces of the lack of clues.