Belharra

Off the Basque coast, the Belharra wave rises only a few days a year, enormous, over a shoal: a wall of water the surfers watch for. Jean-Manuel Freitas has cast it in gilt bronze — crest curled, deep trough, surface striated by the wind — raised on a black base. The light, lodged in the hollow of the wave, springs from between the volutes of the metal. Issued in eight examples, the piece is as much sculpture as lamp.