“White dove, red dove, I’m dancing on the fire…” Since I learned of the death of Nestor Basterretxea, I have in mind that song that is part of the soundtrack of childhood. Perhaps because, as Basterretxea himself said, the Basques have a tendency to transmit orality, rather than to inherit the images. But linked to these melodies and words always comes the poster designed by the Bermean, symbol of the Bai Euskarari campaign organized by Euskaltzaindia in 1978. In my memory, I don't see the poster stuck to the walls, probably because I've lost the poster in the overdose of those years of transition; in childhood we were wearing the white, red and black dove of Basterretxea serigraphed in t-shirt.

So we didn't even know who Nestor Basterretxea.And even less that he wanted to be an architect, that he had been influenced by Le Corbusier, that he had started painting, but that the need to detach from both dimensions had led him to the sculpture, or that the clean lines of that flat dove of the t-shirt suggested volume. We knew it was a dove, helped by the words of the song. And so when we didn't know anything about art, that symbol led us to that point where the boundary between abstraction and figurative forms is blurred. Because it became a symbol, a symbol of our language.

Ten years later, this dove lost red blood and gained volume. In 1988, a pigeon de la Paz was installed in the Zurriola of Donostia-San Sebastian, seven meters long by nine meters wide. The newspaper library confirms that it is a "work against all people who use violence", according to Basterretxea. But then there was not that of “all,” but that of “some” or “others.” We called it The Rooster. We couldn't like it. And yet, it looked like the favorite emblem of childhood: strong diagonal lines, a clear image of geometric abstract shapes (more flawless in the sculpture than in the poster). Five years later, thanks to the works of Kursaal, the dove moved to Amara Berri. Although the author recognized its new location, the sculpture was created to resist the attacks of the sea and has since been nothing but a witness to the waves of football fans. Public sculpture must be part of space, acting in its surroundings.

And that is what we would like the symbol of the Basque Parliament to have a real influence on the environment, as only three countries are presided over by a seven-branch wooden tree, which Basterretxea placed there in 1984.

Between Euskera and art, the artist discovered a “black hole” in the Basque collective imaginary, and his goal was to fill the void. It was based on the work of Aita Barandiaran on mythology, and it was Barandiaran himself who encouraged the physical character of these beliefs. The artist reinterpreted steles, argizaiolas, solar flowers. Some of these works are found in public spaces, such as the Indarra de Leioa trail, for example.

But the Basque Cosmogony of Basterretxea has also occupied, in some way, a private space. On the Internet I have seen that some of the albums of the series of Basterretxea discoidal steles are sold at auction. And it seems to me that I've seen those small sculptures in different places, in the shelving of houses, in trophies, in all the interpretations of Basque symbols. To complete the Basque imaginary, Basterretxea built the bridge, a sign that many others have crossed it.

The Gaur group has not witnessed the last part of Arantzazu’s controversy, but in fact, many do not know or who Nestor Basterretxea is, but without realizing they have internalized his images. When someone dies, the media is filled with topics, and once again, the gap left by Nestor Basterretxea has been mentioned in the headline. But that vacuum that was detected in our aesthetic heritage has been very well filled.