The Guggenheim Bilbao -Exhibitions

30th May 2014

The museum displays works by contemporary artists and a selection of work by Basque artists as well as a selection from the collections of the Guggenheim Foundation. When it opened in 1997 - the exhibition was titled "The GuggenheimMuseums and the Art of this Century" with a 300-pieces of works of 20th century art from Cubism to New Media Art. Most came from the Foundation's collection but some were purchased from the works of Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko and some were new commisions by Richard Serra, Franceso Lemente etc.

Its only permanent exhibiton is "The Matter of Time" by Richard Serra. - a series of weathering steel sculptures put up in the Arcelor Gallery ( sponsored by the steel company Arcelor Mittal) Other exhibitions usually highlight avant-garde art, 20th century abstractions and non-objective art.

 Richard Serra's " The Matter of Time" in the Arcelor Gallery

a series of huge steel scuptures where one has to walk around or in it

to get a visual and temporal experience of space.

shifting in unexpected ways as one walks around or in the sculptures

one experiences a dizzying sensation of space in motion.

 Tulips by Jeff Koons

a bouquet of multicoloured baloon flowers blown to gargantuan proprtions

comes from a part of his" Celebration" series focusing on generic

 mass-produced items associated with birthdays etc

 Maman ( mother in French ) by Louise Boergeois

Intended as a tribute to her mother who was a weaver -

 Boergeois's spiders  are highly contradictory as emblems of maternity -

 they suggest both protector and predator.

Her works are mostly deeply personal

with references to her painful childhood memories

of an unfaithful father

and a loving but complicit mother.

 Puppy by Jeff Koons welcomes you at the front entrance square

Koons employed computer modelling to create a work

 that references 18th century formal European garden

a behemoth West Highland terrier carpeted in bedding plants

imposing in scale and size it appears to be still growing

Koons designed the sculpture to relentlessly entice, to create optimism

and to instill "confidence and security".