An architectural masterpiece, one of the most beautiful places in Spain, the greatest building in the world – so they call the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The titanium and glass structure has become a trademark of the Basque Country. Every year it is visited by at least a million people – not only Spaniards, but also foreign tourists. The secret of success, of course, and in the permanent and temporary exhibitions of the museum, which presents the iconic works of contemporary artists.
Interesting facts about the museum
The museum in Bilbao is the third foreign branch of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, USA). Two more are open in Venice and Abu Dhabi.
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is annually ranked among the most visited museums in Spain.
The museum has an area of 24,000 square meters, of which 10,540 square meters are used as exhibition spaces, divided into 19 galleries.
The museum was “filmed” in Bondiana, the 1999 film “And the whole world is not enough. By the way, the Guggenheim Museum in New York is also loved by directors: for example, some episodes of “Men in Black” were made there.
Historical background
Negotiations to build a museum in Bilbao were initiated by the Guggenheim Foundation with the city government in 1991. Six years later, in October 1997, the new museum opened its doors to the public. The importance of the project for Spain is shown by the fact that the opening ceremony was attended by King Juan Carlos I and his wife Queen Sofia.
The new cultural center greatly improved the image of the city and brought considerable profit to the treasury, while the museum itself was included in the list of must-see places in Spain.
Nevertheless, during the construction phase the Guggenheim Museum was criticized. In particular, many condemned the too high cost of the project (which, however, in 2013 had already paid for itself 37 times over). The famous Basque sculptor Jorge Otejsa even called the building a “cheese factory” and promised that he would never exhibit within its walls. However, he quickly changed his mind, and now his work is part of the museum’s permanent collection.
“The greatest building of our time.”
This is what the American architect Philip Johnson called the museum in Bilbao. The avant-garde building with complex geometry, built of limestone, titanium and glass, was designed by the brilliant Canadian architect Frank Gehry, the founding father of deconstructivism.
Gehry played on the maritime theme, thus paying tribute to the port of Bilbao, the largest in the country: the building itself resembles a ship (although many call it a spaceship), “sailing” on the waters of the river Nervión, and the panelling made of titanium plates looks like fish scales. In these scales, sunlight is repeatedly reflected and crushed.
The museum’s 55-meter-high central glass atrium is Gehry’s tribute to American pioneering architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the creator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
At the forefront of art
Louise Bourgeois’ giant spider looks especially creepy in the fogThe Guggenheim Museum’s wall changes color depending on which flowers in the composition are in bloom and which are wilted
The basis of the museum’s collection – contemporary art, ranging from the mid-20th century to the present day. One can see works by such masters as Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, Willem de Kooning and James Rosenquist. Naturally, the museum also features contemporary Spanish artists: Eduardo Chillida, Jorge Oteiza, Antonio Saura, Juan Muñoz.
In order to maintain the status of Spain’s most avant-garde museum, it is not enough to exhibit avant-gardists, you need to use fundamentally different forms of presentation. This is why the Guggenheim Museum has a lot of interactive works that visitors can “interact” with, and of course a lot of video art and installations.
All this does not mean that the museum in Bilbao is of interest only to fans of contemporary art. In recent years, temporary exhibitions of masters whose genius has stood the test of time have been held here quite often. For example, the museum has shown drawings by Michelangelo, engravings by Dürer and works from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum.
Perhaps the museum’s two most famous exhibits, due to their size, are not on display inside the building, but in front of it. These are a huge metal spider by American Louise Bourgeois and a 13-meter-long puppy by American artist Jeff Koons made of fresh flowers.
Temporary Exhibits
The museum’s enormous floor space becomes a problem for those visitors who want to see the best of everything at once. That’s why the Guggenheim Museum’s Masterpieces exhibition, which will be open through April 3, 2016, is the perfect way to experience icons of contemporary art. On display are works by Mark Rothko, Yves Klein, Robert Rauschenberg, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Clifford Still and Anselm Kiefer. There’s also the famous diptych “Marilyn Monroe” by the king of pop art, Andy Warhol.
But the atypical Warhol is on display at the Guggenheim Museum until October 2. The exhibition “Shadows” consists of 102 canvases, which the great American created with the help of sponge and paint from photographs of shadows of real objects.