This blog posts will cover what we saw inside the Guggenheim museum Bilbao. An earlier post talked about the outside, click here to read. Here is another view of the Simpson-ish model of the building.
Let’s take a look around inside. There is a normal-looking, rather warm and cozy, education center.
A cafe with a giant painting.
In the atrium, looking up …
The upper floors or ceiling, if you can call it that …
The main galleries are spacious.
Tailor-made space for an installation by Jenny Holzer
There is a gallery specially designed to house Richard Serra’s monumental The Matter of Time – we will have a separate post later on it.
We saw two special exhibitions – one exhibition is about Louise Bourgeoise’s Cells series- the creator of the giant spider (Maman) outside the museum. Much of what we have written below came from the museum’s site.
Over her long career as an artist, Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) developed concepts and formal inventions that later became key positions in contemporary art; these included the use of environmental installation and theatrical formats, and the engagement with psychoanalytic and feminist themes.
Cells is a series of architectural spaces that deal with a range of emotions. a collection of 60-plus pieces of work created over two decades.
Cells present individual microcosms; each is an enclosure that separates the internal from the external world. In these unique spaces, the artist arranged found objects, clothes, furniture, and sculptures to create emotionally charged, theatrical sets.
I(Chris) found the pieces intriguing, claustrophobic and surreal … the Cells reminded me a bit of the world created by Rene Margritte’s paintings.
The other exhibition is Andy Warhols’ Shadows – created with the assistance of his entourage. It is a collection of 102 silkscreen canvas, placed side by side in an enormous space.
According to the museum’s web site, “The “shadows” alternate between positive and negative imprints as they march along the wall of the gallery.”
We think the museum curator is being rather generous here.
Venturing out onto the terrace, we found Tulips by Jeff Koons – a bouquet of multicolor balloon flowers measuring more than 2 meters tall and 5 meters across.
It is nowhere as endearing as the Puppy out in front of the main entrance.