We Venture Into The Museo Guggenheim Bilbao

Ok, so we have fallen down a bit on the blogging, but there is plenty going on here in Spain, so expect a number of posts over the next ten days or so.

We returned to Bilbao the first weekend of the new year to visit two temporary exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum. It is easy to just enjoy the architecture and sculptures outside the museum as we did in September with Jeff’s parents, but it was time to venture inside and purchase a membership.

The piece of art behind me here is The Tulips by Jeff Koons (for our LA readers, there is currently another version of Tulips on display at the Broad Museum). The fog behind that is also actually an art installation, while the bridge over the river is kind of built into the museum. The Guggenheim building/architecture is really art in itself.

The first temporary exhibit we enjoyed was “David Hockney, 82 Portraits & 1 Still-life,” which featured portraits Hockney recently painted while staying in his Los Angeles area home. He painted each portrait over a 3-day period with each subject sitting in the same chair. Sounds boring right? Not at all. Jeff noted he liked it so much more than he expected. The colors and individualistic presentation of each subject were compelling and interesting. And being able to look at all of the portraits in one room also made the contrasts between each notable.

The second temporary exhibit titled “Art & Space” provided perspectives on the different ways a work of art “takes over the space” and the space “traverses the work of art.” It is difficult to describe the various sculptures and other pieces in this exhibit. One “sculpture” was an old Volkswagen Beetle that had been completely disassembled and each part suspended, as if the car was in the process of simply expanding outward (as opposed to violently exploding). It was quite mind-boggling to contemplate a car this way. Another piece was in a small room that appeared to be divided in half by a glass panel, only there was no glass there at all! The artist, using light and painted walls, made it appear as if the glass was there even though it wasn’t. Even after confirming that there was no glass present (by putting our hands through the space where the glass appeared to be and even stepping through it), our eyes and minds still said it was there. Truly a mind-bending experience!

Finally, we visited the large permanent sculpture exhibit “The Matter of Time,” which is a group of sculptures you can walk through and be part of the art. These concave, convex, and spiraling pieces make you feel small and as you move through them you encounter different sensations. You don’t just see them, you actively experience them. This exhibit is so impressive that we know we will walk through it every time we return to the museum.

Looking forward to the Chagall exhibit that arrives in June!

Shana & Jeff