Museum Visit: Guggenheim Bilboa

I was lucky enough to visit the Guggenheim museum during a recent trip to the Basque country, we only had one day there which wasn’t really enough to take in everything with equal concentration but it was a very inspiring experience.

The building itself is a gorgeous sweep of reflective elegance,

Jeff Koons’ Puppy, jewel bright in the sunshine, made me smile (although I thought it was a kitten) 

Puppy by Jeff Koons

and Louise Bourgeois’ Maman made me nervous (I’d seen it before in the Tate Modern and had similar feelings) for its sheer scale and spidery-ness; tourists couldn’t seem to pass her  without getting their photos taken draping their legs over one hers...I had no desire to touch her and felt creepy standing underneath to take a photo of her egg sack, despite finding her absolutely beautiful.

Maman by Louise Bourgeois

I made a few notes in my guide as I went around the inside galleries, capturing my immediate reactions

In retrospect, a week later, the piece which resonates with me the most is Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Barge’ because, despite its lack of colour, I was fascinated and excited by the energy encapsulated in the layers of paint, collage, and repetitive screen prints. These are techniques which I would dearly love to bring together in my own artwork.

L’Art en Guerre

I am a bit embarrassed to report that I was little moved by Dali and Picasso ‘in the flesh’, in contrast to the exquisite drawings of Hans Bellmer, as well as his ‘Puppet’ with its erotic deformity.

I was also entranced by Felix Nussbaum’s ‘Self Portrait in a Camp’ which is a fascinating mix of dark luminosity, exquisitely painted detail and naively painted background figures. It really captured for me the horror of the unjust and inhuman treatment experienced by those detained by the Nazis and in particular his own tragic story at their hands.

Riotous Baroque

I thought the juxtaposition of modern art works (sculpture, film and paintings) with 17^th century paintings was a very clever way to show what Baroque is all about: excess, decadence and vitality; although I wasn’t convinced by the execution of some of the modern pieces (they just looked hurried or lazy and unskilled) in comparison to the fine 17^th century paintings. The modern pieces which worked best for me in this context were

Boris Mikhailov’s ‘Tea Coffee Cappuccino’  series of photographs of life in the Ukraine between 2000-2010  for their vibrant, no holds barred urban portraits of dirty melting landscapes and drunken celebratory people.

and

Marilyn Minter’s extraordinary huge works, painted from photographs taken through glass of subjects splashing about in a mixture of Vodka, glycerine and silver cake decorating powder. You’d never know they were painted unless someone told you or got right up close to look and they really convey a sense of flashy decadence and detached joy.

The Matter of Time

This series of towering rusty steel sculptures by Richard Serra was the first exhibit I visited and was a great introduction to the magnificent use of interior space in the museum. Walking around and between the beautifully textured walls was both fun and strangely disorientating; private, in the way that the rest of the space was cut off and uniting, in that you could hear the echoes of the voices and footsteps of the other visitors who you’d sometimes come across unexpectedly in the narrow rusty alleys. 

Kelly Grovier includes works by Louise Bourgeois, Jeff Koons and Richard Serra and Picasso (‘Guernica’ which is too fragile to be moved from its current location in Madrid to its spiritual home in the Basque country; we travelled through Gernica (local spelling) which is a fully recovered, bright bustling town with some excellent street art) in his list of 100 modern art works ‘likely to be remembered and discussed centuries from now’ in this Sunday Times article.

I totally agree.