Bilbao, Spain is an incredible city, in large part due to the Guggenheim Museum located there. In fact, there is something called the Bilbao Effect which is a term used by economists to describe the economic and social impact of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao which opened in 1997. The museum’s construction is said to have transformed the city, which had high unemployment and poverty before the museum’s completion. The museum is considered a masterpiece of architecture, designed by Frank Gehry. And this stunning museum was a highlight of our time in Bilbao.
We did an excursion that took us to the Guggenheim and had us tour it with a docent who described the various parts of the museum as well as the artworks inside of it. The museum itself is stunning, both inside and outside. The marvelous exterior fractures sunlight into an effervescent shimmer. The interior has milk-white walls with soaring halls and intimate galleries. It is a true architectural masterpiece clad in swooping titanium plates and curving glass panes throughout.
We spent almost two hours at the museum, and could have spent more. I’m not a huge fan of museums – at least not for that long – yet this was an incredible visit. I think having the tour guide with us to explain the pieces and give us some backstories on the artists and their work made the visit all the better.
We saw one exhibit by Yayoi Kusama, an artist who has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world’s top-selling female artist, and the world’s most successful living artist. The exhibit was called “Infinity Mirrored Room – A Wish for Human Happiness Calling from Beyond the Universe” and was an immersive exhibit that was meant to let us into the artist’s head in terms of how she sees the world. A cool thing we learned was that Yayoi has resided since the 1970s in a mental health facility which she leaves daily to walk to her nearby studio to work. She says that art has become her way to express her mental problems and the exhibit we went through was meant to transform her unsettling hallucinations into mystical visions, just like immersing in the stardust of the infinite universe.
We also saw an installation called “Rising Sea” that was by African artist El Anatsui that used bottle caps, plastic tabs, and other rubbish to create a masterpiece that spanned the entire wall of a large room.
Another piece we saw came with a fun story from our docent. Namely, the art in the photo below is called “Man From Naples” and was from an artist who supposedly got mad at his broker for demanding more pieces of art in a hurried manner. He felt his broker was being overly demanding, as if art could be just instantly created and didn’t take effort or time. So he made this piece essentially mocking his broker and calling him a pig. There are various words like “porkchops” in the piece to signify that his art could just be quickly produced like a porkchop from a pig. So basically the art was a big F-you to his broker and then it actually became a famous piece of work that now sits in the Guggenheim!
Another immersive exhibit we saw was a huge series of pieces called “The Matter of Time” that were meant to be touched and experienced by walking through them to appreciate their size and design. They were curving and twisting in ways that when you were in them they almost seemed to go on forever. The picture below is of the structures from above. They took up an entire huge room in the building and were created with weathering steel that changed color over time and were meant to be reflective of the area of Bilbao.
Yet another immersive exhibit was appropriately titled “Installation for Bilbao” by artist Jenny Holzer. It was basically a bunch of LED signs with phrases in different languages scrolling across them. The three languages that were scrolling were English, Spanish, and Basque. It was a fun exhibit and meant to be provocative.
Another fun piece we came across took up the whole wall of a room and was called “Waking”. You can see the bright colors of it in the photo below. In the center of the work are images of the artists – Gilbert and George – and surrounding them are images that are supposed to represent a sort of inner awakening, perhaps from the passage from boyhood to maturity. We love brightly colored art so this one stood out to us.
Another cool exhibit were these ultra-polished stainless steel tulips aptly named “Tulips”. They looked like giant balloons and were whimsical and fun.
Outside of the Guggenheim are several unique installations. One was a giant spider called “Maman”. The artist, Louise Bourgeois, has been including spiders in her work for decades as an tribute to her mom who was a weaver. As described by the Guggenheim, “Bourgeois’s spiders are highly contradictory as emblems of maternity: they suggest both protector and predator—the silk of a spider is used both to construct cocoons and to bind prey—and embody both strength and fragility.” You can’t really see it in the photo, but there is a sac full of eggs hanging below the spider’s undercarriage. Pretty cool actually.
Another installation outside that the Guggenheim is famous for is “Puppy”, a giant flower sculpture of a behemoth West Highland terrier carpeted in flowers by the American artist Jeff Koons. As described on the Guggenheim website: “Imposing in scale, its size both tightly contained and seemingly out of control (it is both literally and figuratively still growing), and juxtaposing elite and mass-cultural references (topiary and dog breeding, Chia Pets and Hallmark greeting cards), the work may be read as an allegory of contemporary culture.” It truly was a cool piece to see.
After we finished our time at the Guggenheim, we had a brief shuttle bus tour of the city itself. The city truly is remarkable and pretty. We found ourselves on a hilltop overlooking the city where we were able to enjoy some amazing views (including the one below of the Guggenheim from up high) before concluding our tour.
After our visit to the Guggenheim and the panoramic tour of the city, we headed back for the ship. We very much enjoyed our time in Bilbao!