The ideas noted in the margin of Jorge Oteiza’s books are the focus of the latest book in the Punto de Vista Collection

Punto de Vista aims to shed light on something that has not been said or published in the vast amount of material on Oteiza and his personality. For this reason, the festival is pleased to present a discovery such as the notes in the margin that Jorge Oteiza jotted down in the books in his library in which he instinctively developed his most agile ideas and freshest notes. This latest book by Punto de Vista, with a carefully studied design, is a book that contains other books, where it is possible to enjoy reading passages in which Oteiza refutes and rounds off his reading in the margin, such as the chapter devoted to Time in a book by Jorge Luis Borges in which the sculptor from Orio constantly makes notes to discuss his ideas on space and its relationship with time with the Argentinean writer.  

Oteiza in the Margin offers the spectator-reader the possibility of seeing how Oteiza’s ideas came about, or in other words, of witnessing his direct source whilst investigating how his inspiration works as the connection between the idea and the text read is sometimes clear but at other times it is more  fanciful or shrouded in mystery. The reader is given the privilege of getting closer to this virginal Oteiza, an Oteiza armed with his fountain pen, and witness first hand his reading and first line ideas, which are often more interesting and freeer than thoughtful analysis and excess meditation.

The book includes a study of Jorge Oteiza’s notes by the festival’s Artistic Director, Oskar Alegria, in which interesting chapters on his calligraphic habits are revealed. It shows what Oteiza jotted down, where and why in order to unravel some mysteries (why was he interested in windows and owls), the period in which he referred everything he read to the cromlech, study his passion for Eisenstein, his criticism of Hitchcock, and his theories on how to film his sculptures,… In addition to his footnotes, the book is rounded off with some unpublished documents in his own handwriting in which there are some interesting notes for film scripts unknown by the public: one on Time, another on a tree, others on the story of The Immortal by Borges… and up to 9 scripts on which little or nothing has been said: on Velázquez, on Ulysses by Joyce, on Mallarmé. 

The book has been funded by the Government of Navarra in collaboration with the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation and Golem. With a print-run of 1,000 copies, it can be acquired at the Jorge Oteiza Museum and at the headquarters of Punto de Vista during the festival as well as via the website of the Government of Navarra's Publications Section and at specialised bookshops and art centres throughout the country.

The design of the new book in the Punto de Vista Collection is the work of the designer, Santos Bregaña Etxeberria (atelier laia), who was also responsible for the title published by the festival in 2016, TIME. 

This book on time continues the tradition set in previous editions of the festival, of publishing volumes year after year to build up a Punto de Vista library. Found Footage, aesthetics in Japanese film, the sensitivity of Ermanno Olmi’s films, the transience of Jem Cohen’s films, the poems by Margaret Tait, time in film… have been some of the themes addressed in the books in previous editions, with the firm idea of not limiting the festival to the mere screening of films. Since the outset in 2005, the festival has always striven to offer extra thought and debate that becomes real in encounters with people and in the materialisation of ideas with the publication of a book that creates a festival that has the virtue of being a group of films that are accompanied either in the flesh or on paper.