We are off to see the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao Spain. For some reason, probably good PR, I have heard about it for decades. I have been to the Guggenheim in New York; the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice, but now we will head to the acclaimed architectural wonder of Bilbao…the Guggenheim there. We are in staying in a condo 800 yards from a beach in Sonabria, Spain. It is west of Bilbao and is as quiet and lovely a place as you can find. It is surrounded by amazing mountains and at the same time on the sea. Why leave.
But we do. It is a sunny day, better than predicted. I expected rain in Bilbao, but not so. It is clear and sunny. We are heading into a major city and I am never relaxed about driving into a city that I do not know. The traffic is Sunday lite, and the GPS is doing the job, still I am tense as we find our way in. When we arrive at the Guggenheim, there is no signs for parking. Huh? We U turn at the museum and head back along a parkway looking for a place to put the car. Fortunately, a quarter mile away from the museum, an underground ramp appears. We find ourselves under a large urban shopping mall. When we come out, we find we can walk along a pleasant parkway to the museum.
As we approach the building, it is striking. We find our way to the entrance…no small feat..I might add, as this is a big place. At the entrance is a two story high sculpture of a sitting dog. It is cover with a skin of live flowers that grow out of it. Not bad.
Once in, we get a free audio tour. As we take it, the first four chapters address the architecture. It is remarkable and though the narative describing the place is full of wacky artistic speak, it is good to hear what Frank Gerhy was trying to accomplish. Neat as it is, the budget must have been nearly unlimited. God bless Bilbao, or whoever allowed the place to happen, the city owes them big. God knows I’d never come to Bilbao except for it..I assume millions more are like me.
The place is great. Three stories of titanium, glass and steel, twisting and turning, an almost organic building, like a tree stump that has forced its way out of the ground then been cut off. The sun is bright and the building is gleaming.
We tour a huge permanent exhibit of steel plates 20 feet high set up like mazes of sort in a giant gallery. One walks around them and between them and into them. I buy it. It seems like art. You can touch it and experience it. I dig it; it’s “modern” to use what seems an old fashioned word.
Another gallery on the first floor has a huge screen of words continuously moving vertically in a dark room. I don’t get it. It seems simple minded. If it’s a poem, then let it be a poem. Who needs a 40 foot wall of words, none terribly clever. It is boring even before you give it much consideration.
At this point the elevators traveling through glass walls seems more interesting than the art. I suggest we live it up and go to the 3rd floor. The top one. Once there, we find a number of galleries that are trying to show how artists from the past have influenced modern artists. Frankly, the old stuff…that is not that special… seems much better than the new stuff. A huge room is dedicated to a guy that paints bottles and does not do it much better than I could. Bottle after gray bottle. Give me a break! I’d mention his name, but it wasn’t worth learning.
Another genious stretches paper over a picture frame and slices it with a razor blade. The audio tour goes on and on about how important the slices are. Really! He also did some sculpture that might have gotten an A in a high school class. Whoop-di-doo.
The next gallery has some paintings that are huge. I am ready for some paintings that aren’t slices. These, more or less, look like something. A german guy has sculpted a what looks like an airplane wing that fell off a fighter jet. Out of the engine under the wing a mop of human hair spills onto the floor. Poinient? Sadly. It is the most interesting thing in the room. Now onto another gallery, to find Andy Whorhol and the boys. We get a wall of Marilyns. A wall size Roshenburg that is a collage of stuff from Life Magazine..
The audio tour quotes Rouchy as saying: it’s an artist job to document his time in history and that he completed the work in less than a day. I don’t doubt it. Most annoying is a Busquait that is almost good graffiti, but stops short. Instead, it is conceived as an affront to his patron, who was apparently a pork products manufacturer. So, tell me whose the dumbest guy in the room? The filthy rich butcher, the artist or me?
We head to the second floor galleries. They are all closed for some reason. Just as well. Ana turns to me and says the reason to come here is the building not the art. She is right.
We go out side to find a cafe, but this part of Bilbao is extremely sterril. Not an eatery in sight. What a shame on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Everywhere else in Spain there are restaurants busting out all over. Here none. We end up eating a terrible lunch in the big shopping mall, then head for the car. Still, I don’t regret seeing the Guggenheim.
Once back at the condo, I take a walk to the beach below while Ana rests. I find a trail to the top of the mountains behind us. It is too late to follow it to the top. I hope the weather lets me go up tomorrow and see the views.
European Trip 2019 