Day Trip to Bilbao

Last week, we took a day trip to Bilbao to see a Miro exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum. We started with coffee and a pastry at a very nice pasteleria near the museum. We were surpised to find that the person serving us was from Hawaii (!). This young women had moved to Bilboa two years ago and spoke very good Spanish, probably due to her Basque mother. She was impressed with our Spanish, but we all agreed that Euskera is just much too hard to learn.

At the museum, we started with the Miro exhibit. We have been to the Miro Foundation in Barcelona several times, and it is a museum that we really like. But this exhibit, which contained many works we had never seen before, both from private collections and museums we have never visited, did not impress us much. This was the most interesting piece, both for its form and for its inclusion of many elements that Miro used often:

Fortunately, as is often the case, the other temporary exhibits at the museum were better than the one we went to see. First we saw a work by a Japanese artist named Yayoi Kusama whose work tends to be immersive. The piece we saw was just that: a small room (only 4 people admitted at a time) with mirrors all around and hanging lights. We were not certain exactly what it was supposed to signify, but it was pretty cool.

Next, we saw an exhibit of a black British artist named Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. The exhibit was of both paintings and charcol drawings of black people done between 2020 and 2023. I was particularly impressed by the pieces done in charcol.  I am not  sure why exactly, but there was something about the almost causualness of the drawings that I really liked. Even better, the artist is also a writer, and our favorite part of her exhibit was reading one of her short stories.

The third exhibit was of a 20th century Viennese artist named Oskar Kokoschka. Kokoschka has a style that was controversial from the beginning, especially his portraits. And, after the Nazi's came to power in Germany nine pieces of his work was included in an exhibition of "degenerate artists." Well, Kokoschka didn't like the Nazis any more than they liked him, and his designation as a degenerate artist led him to paint "Self Portrait of a Degenerate Artist" in 1937:

Kokoschka was active in movements against the Nazis throughout the war (he fled from his native Vienna to Prague in 1934 and later to the UK where he spent the war years). He even painted posters calling for aid to Basque children after the Gernika bombing.

Overall, we had a very nice time at the museum, and were happy to have such beautiful weather in Bilbao. Here is Shana with one of two Chilida statues newly located on the terraza of the museum with the "bull bridge" in the background.

After the museum, we took a walk to the restaurant where we had a late Spanish lunch (of course). Lunch was very good, especially the cold avacado soup that was my appetizer (sorry, no pictures - too busy eating). After lunch, it was back to the bus station for our return to San Sebastian. 

We have more one-day outings planned in May, so be sure to check back for more culture from the Basque region.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana