Txomin Badiola (Bilbao, 1957) is the artist behind the poster that will accompany the 84th Quincena Musical of San Sebastian, running from August 3rd to September 1st, 2023. His extensive career, which began in the early 80s, has been punctuated by various awards, including the Gure Artea Prize in 2015, and retrospective exhibitions at prestigious galleries such as the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, and the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía in Madrid.

The commission to create the poster was accompanied by a suggestion to create a piece that commemorates the 20th anniversary of the passing of sculptor Jorge Oteiza, with whom Badiola maintained a close relationship.

Regarding the creation of the poster for the Quincena, Badiola said: "Whenever I am presented with a commission like this, I try to separate myself from the piece. My visual works are based on a very different idea of communication- in fact, they deal with a certain level of incomprehension. The work resists being consumed as a message. A poster, on the other hand, has to ensure that the message is easily received." After several approaches, in which he worked on ideas starting with Oteiza's own image, as well as repurposing a very significant piece by the sculptor, the Bilbao artist finally opted to examine a piece by Oteiza that established a more direct link with music. Badiola created an interpretation of sketches made by Oteiza in 1956 for a mural entitled Relieve directo: Homenaje a Bach, originally located in a private residence, but currently part of the collection of the Museum of the University of Navarra.

Txomin Badiola's career as a sculptor extends from the early 1980s to the present day. His work has been exhibited in numerous national and international galleries and institutions. Both the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (2002), the Museum of Fine Arts of Bilbao (2002), the Musée d'Art Moderne Saint Etienne-Metropole in France (2007) and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (2016-2017) have shown retrospectives of his work. In 2010, together with Jon Mikel Euba, Sergio Prego and 15 volunteers, he created PRIMER PROFORMA 2010, a project for the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León that attempted to transcend conventional notions of the expository and the pedagogical. In 2000, he was awarded the CEOE Foundation Award for the arts, and in 2015 he received the Gure Artea award, sponsored by the Basque Government, in recognition of his artistic career. In 2019, the Caniche publishing house published his book Malformalismo, a text where essay, fiction and autobiography are mixed. He was curator of the first anthology of Oteiza, entitled Propósito Experimental, for La Caixa in 1988. Together with Margit Rowell, he curated the exhibition entitled Oteiza: Mito y Modernidad for the Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao, 2004 and New York, 2005), and for the Museo Nacional Reina Sofía (Madrid, 2005). He is the author of a comprehensive, two-volume catalogue of Oteiza's work published by Nerea publishing house and the Oteiza Museum Foundation. He currently lives and works in Bilbao.

On the subject of music, Badiola says his tastes have never been defined by anything specific, but rather, it depends on the time, the situation, and on what type of music he needs. As for the music he uses to work, he says that “strangely,” he usually listens to "horrible, despicable music." Within classical music, he is especially interested in baroque opera, including Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart.

With this poster, Txomin Badiola joins the long list of respected artists who have been invited to create the official image of the Quincena.

THE POSTERS OF THE QUINCENA:
The following creators have worked on posters for the festival over recent years:

69th QM: Ricardo Ugarte (2008)
70th QM: Cállate la Boca (2009)
71st QM: Maider Lopez (2010)
72th QM: Esther Ferrer (2011)
73th QM: Asier Mendizabal (2012)
74th QM: Koldobika Jauregi (2013)
75th QM: Txema G. Amiano, TGA + Associates (2014)
76th QM: Jesús Mª Lazkano (2015)
77th QM: Elena Odriozola (2016)
78th QM: Manu Muniategiandikoetxea (2017)
79th QM: Juan Luis Goenaga (2018)
80th QM: Itziar Okariz (2019)
81st QM: Pello Irazu (2020)
82th QM: Ibon Aranberri (2021)
83rd QM: Azucena Vieites (2022)
84th QM: Txomin Badiola (2023)