We are in the País Vasco (Basque) engaging our love of modern art and reconnecting with some of our art-school heroes. We are using this trip to remember Frank Gehry, who died last December at the age of ninety-six. Of course, his legacy includes the Museo Guggenheim (Gehry, 1992-97) in Bilbao (pop 351,124 in 2025), so we are here to experience this masterpiece, the Museo's collection, and the city.
"Puppy" (1992) by Jeff Koons greets us again at the entry plaza, and under the morning sun, looks vibrant and eager. Rather than walking to the Pasarela Pedro Arrupe (2003), as we did yesterday, we head east across the plaza, over the Río Nervión, to the Puente de La Salve (Juan Batanero, 1972); the Puente features the "Arcos Rojos" (2006) by Daniel Buren. The sharp, red arches play against the intense blue office block and the rippling, amber-toned sheet metal.
From the deck of the bridge, we realize that the Museo is built over the roadway, the tram tracks, and under the bridge (note the runners from this morning's road race). The serpentine upper galleries clad in titanium break at the bridge railing, a novel way to share a view and offer a taste of the shows inside ("Jasper Johns: Night Driver" is currently being installed).
Louise Bourgeois' "Maman" (mother spider, 1999) stands on the lower esplanade (Muelle Campa de los Ingleses), at the base of a sweeping stairway. Bourgeois is from that 'heroic' generation of artists, too; she passed in 2010 at the age of ninety-eight. We recall seeing "Maman" in Porto, in 2021 when we went to the Serralves to see "Intertwine" by AI Weiwei.
While the Museo's titanium surfaces create drama, the glass, the window framing, and the stone tiled elements provide a fascinating interplay, as the edges bend and slide past each other. Along with the plaza's pavers, these form a plinth on which the dynamic metal components dance.
From the plaza, a grand stairway that leads down to the Atrio. The view up reveals a several dark creases. The titanium is not polished, nor is it perfectly smooth. The sheets are puckered and streaked from weather, with an unexpectedly warm patina (early pictures showed a silvery finish); the seams bulge and bubble. These added layers and shadows filter the light and the dim the sheen. The metal-clad forms gently deflate and come to rest on flat stone tiles.
From the darkened landing, we enter the Atrio. The glass takes on an entirely new character, as it becomes the 'lifting' material, flipping from reflective to transparent. The hard, white, vertical figures twist between the frameworks, as if causing the creases and crosswise spokes. The stone veneers carry a deeper cast, now with concave surfaces and curvilinear corners. The glass and interior pavers draw in the sky, the green hills, and the shimmer of the river.
Our trip coincides with the Museo's presentation of "Ruth Asawa: Retrospectiva". This show marks the centennial of her birth (Asawa passed in 2013 at 87). Of course, we know Asawa very well from our time in the Bay Area, where her work features at SFMOMA and the Oakland Museum of California (online collection), and is home to the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (where my father's cello was donated).
The Museo is the perfect showcase for Asawa's work: repetitive metal units that flow and change in the light. The show opens with her work at the Black Mountain School, run by Josef and Anni Albers during the post-war years – the influence of Anni Albers is particularly apparent: weaving, repetitive patterns, and folded structures.
Asawa's work in the 1950's and 60's shows how she developed her complex organic shapes, with nested objects, a variety of wire types, and both 'closed' and 'frayed' edges. Her prints, sketches, and multi-media works present similar images of fractal-like growth.
The exhibition is wonderfully lit and presented. While the sculptures don't reflect or shine, they do cast shadows and create effects within the highlights; the bodies grow and multiply with the light. Groups are suspended over floating islands of white. Spotlights are applied at angles that generally prevent viewers from casting their own shadows.
From the 1960's and into the 90's, Asawa's tied wire pieces live somewhere between preserved plants and frozen fireworks, with branching geometries and unexpected formal juxtapositions. Her sketch studies of arborvitaes and redwoods furnish a foundation for this intense study of biologic forms.
Some of her nature drawings are reminiscent of the work of Portuguese artist LourdesCastro (examples from CAM) and remind us of the structural and informational nature of these line drawings. While the sculptures come alive in light, the drawings supply little tonal information, but they are accurate in terms of the number of units, and their relationships.
The penultimate gallery showcases Asawa's last commission, "Garden of Remembrance" (San Francisco State University, 2000-02), a collaboration with landscape designers Isao Ogura and Shigeru Namba. The work commemorates nineteen students of Japanese descent who were removed from the University's campus and incarcerated in camps during World War II (Asawa herself was interred at Rohwer in Arkansas in 1942):
I want this memorial to be a place for people to gather, to think, and to enjoy. It's a reminder that [...] we need to watch out for our liberty.
In this context, the tangled wire, 'closed' containers, and captured bodies take on new meaning. And the 'loose' edges and open forms do as well, with a gentle release.
The final gallery is a summing up of the exhibition. Walking around the last group, its transformations in the changing illumination share a sensibility with Gehry's Museo. Suspended sculptures that at first appear silvery, turn dark, and then disappear – leaving only their silhouettes on the floor.
The large drawings on the walls which at first seem to be traces of those shadows, are line drawings of flowers and plants. Asawa's drawing of persimmons (1992) is particularly evocative, especially the way she renders the blisters on the bark. We have entered a profound level of intense observation, but with a delicate touch, as if magnifying the interlocking wire forms until it's all we see.
The special exhibits gallery, known as 'Sala 105', leads directly to the 'Sala ArcelorMittal' (Sala 104, named for the Luxembourg steel company). The reason for the name becomes obvious when we see the exhibit inside: "The Matter of Time" (1994-2005, online tour) by Richard Serra (who passed in 2024 at 85). As we leave the Asawa show thinking about enclosure and scale, the Serra show gives an immediate and jarring contrast.
"The Matter of Time" is reminiscent of Serra's "Sequence" show that we saw at the reopening of SFMOMA in 2016, which involves apartment-sized 'torqued torus' shapes made from fourteen-foot-tall sheets of Cor-Ten steel.
Like Asawa's work, Serra's work together in groups. There is a trio near the entrance: "Torqued Spiral (Closed Open Closed Open Closed)" (7 plates), "Torqued Ellipse" (2 plates), and "Double Torqued Ellipse" (5 plates, all 2003-04). These pieces squeeze and roll the spaces between them and activate the walls and structural elements of the surrounding gallery, as well as the visitors.
The 'Sala ArcelorMittal' seems to be designed with this artwork in mind. The arches, skylights, and curvilinear soffits are in conversation with the rusty rims. The cool, murky surfaces are like a memory of the Museo's future, weathered and reddened.
We are still wandering in Asawa's geometries, but zoomed in where just two or three loops of wire hold the space, and move with the lighting. The walls lean and expand, then part and open into large round rooms; we are trapped in bubbles of steel.
We exit the first trio, and the space opens out. We can stand away from "Snake" (1994-97) and appreciate the size of the three, fifty-foot-long, S-shaped elements set just far enough apart to allow passage between them. We enter and must deal with the other visitors; the interaction is a cooperative experience.
Passing through "Snake", we come upon another group: "Torqued Spiral (Right Left)", "Torqued Spiral (Open Left Closed Right)" (both 5 plates, 2003-04), and "Between the Torus and the Sphere" (8 plates, 2003-05). The "Torqued Spiral" pair mirrors the first group of 'torqued' structures, while "Between" is more like a sideways "Snake". Rather than traversing the length of the gallery, "Between" crosses and fills the width; aligning the 'floppy' ends makes this piece seem less stable; it zig-zags and alternates concave and convex contours.
On the other side of "Between", the gallery opens again, and we get a broad look at the final piece – a larger 'torqued' construction that fits tightly at the end of the room. Here, at the far end where the gallery passes beyond the Puente de La Salve, a larger square skylight shines over "Blind Spot Reversed" (2003-05), six plates of curved steel.
Rather than 'circular' in plan, "Blind Spot" is almond-shaped. The corners in the constricted, curving corridors are disorienting. But by stepping back into the corners, we gain wider views of the contained configuration and can visually align the apexes and the lip of the skylight. And rather than arriving in a round room, we end in a space split by the final internal plate.
Exiting the "Blind Spot" we finish our tour between the steel and the plastered wall, which perfectly echoes the line of the outer plates. We notice the 'floating' quality of the fabrication, with a reveal at both the top and bottom, making a black outline, and thus the wall serves as another element.
An opening leads to a smaller gallery (Sala 104B), which must pass under the long stairway near "Maman", as we get a direct view of the lower "Arcos Rojos", which frames a mural of street art. We study the red plane and the striped arch in the Museo's quiet. Buren's reduction of the surfaces
To one side is a video showing the installation of "The Matter of Time". After a short pause, we cross through "The Matter of Time" in the other direction, then climb the stairs to the second floor. But the floor is closed as the staff installs "Night Driver". So, we climb up to the third floor to access the other staircase and go back down to another area of the second floor.
All the while, we are treated to shifting scenes in the Atrio.
On the second floor, we find the balcony overlooking "The Matter of Time". From here, we can watch the other visitors moving through the labyrinth and re-experience the exhibit. Interestingly, from this interval of 'removal', we can breakdown how the sculptures work on its participants, as they slide carefully through the gaps and stop when they reach the centers of the exits.
We are zooming out now, and the effect is similar watching people move through the Atrio. It is impossible not to look out, look up, then pause to reorient and wonder.
The large paintings from the Permanent Collection (Sala 303 and Sala 302), include Andy Warhol's "One Hundred and Fifty Multicolored Marilyns" (1979). James Rosenquist's "The Swimmer in the Econo-mist (painting 2)" (1997), and a 'spot' painting by Damien Hirst.
The adjoining gallery feeds directly into the Atrio and is dominated by Anselm Kiefer's enourmous print, "The Paths of World Wisdom: Hermann’s Battle" (1982–93), and Kendell Geers' colonnade of the razor wire, "Akropolis Now" (2004).
The queue to get into Sala 301 to see Yayoi Kusuma's "Infinity Mirrored Room – A Wish for Human Happiness Calling from Beyond the Universe" (2020) looks achingly long. We opt for a sit-down lunch instead.
Our table at lunch gives us an excellent view of the Torre Iberdrola (César Pelli, 2007-11 – Pelli passed in 2019 at 92) on the other side of the Plaza Euskadi.
After lunch, we return to the open riverside porch, which houses two steel sculptures by Eduardo Chillida (passed in 2002 at 78): the hollow boxes of "Advice to Space V" (1993) and the knotted post of "Embrace XI" (1996). Also, here we discover the titanium's relationship to the ground plane and the water, which is different than at the entry plaza.
At each side of the porch, we watch the activity along the Río Nervión, with the "Tall Tree and the Eye" (Anish Kapoor, 2009) to the west and the "Arcos Rojos" to the east.
We make a final pass around the Museo's western flank, walking along and over the Río Nervión to the east. We stop to admire "Tall Tree and the Eye" and "Maman".
The riverwalk is full of people selling crafts and football (soccer) jerseys, and a young lady randomly singing at the top of her lungs. With her voice ringing against the sparkling cladding, we begin to climb the stairs to La Torre
La Torre is a steel frame with its stone paneling split in two. It's an unusual entry or exit point to the Museo, like a stake at the end of the 'Sala ArcelorMittal' – where the Museo ends and the city begins.
We go under the deck of the Puente de La Salve and emerge at the "Arcos Rojos".
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