Txomin Badiola (Bilbao, 1957) is a visual artist who, during the 1980s, was part of the New Basque Sculpture movement. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Bilbao, where he taught from 1982 to 1988. Under the constructivist influence of Jorge Oteiza, Badiola—along with other artists—undertook a critical approach to late modernist formalism, continually questioning its boundaries and experimenting with alternative models of artistic production.
In 1988 he moved to London, and in 1990 to New York. From there, he renewed the formal and conceptual foundations of his work. Video, film, television, photography, the photo-novel, comics, and popular music interacted directly with sculptural proposals, in a process of hybridization and fusion of languages that opposed modern artistic autonomy. Likewise, narrative fiction and its temporal unfolding acquired a fundamental role in his work.
He has written numerous articles for magazines (such as Flash Art and Giornale dell’Arte) and texts for exhibition catalogues. He has published Oteiza. Catalogue Raisonné of Sculpture (FMO and Nerea), as well as three novels: Malformalism, The Curator (Caniche), and Mamuk (Acantilado). He has also curated several exhibitions, including—together with Margit Rowell—Oteiza. Myth and Modernity for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2004) and New York (2005), and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid). His work has been exhibited in national and international museums and galleries. Notable exhibitions include Four Stories of Deceit and Agitation (Soledad Lorenzo Gallery, Madrid, 1995), Bestearen Jokoa / The Game of the Other (Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, San Sebastián, 1997), Uncertain Spaces (Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney, 2000), Bad Forms (Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona and the Museum of Fine Arts Bilbao, 2002), La forme qui pense (Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole, France, 2007), Another Family Plot (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2016), I Burst Out Laughing. I Die of Sorrow (CarrerasMugica Gallery, Bilbao, 2021), and his participation in the group exhibition That Time (Tabakalera, San Sebastián, in collaboration with the Museum of Fine Arts Bilbao, 2023).
