Works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection
01.24.2023 - 12.31.2025
This presentation of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection includes a selection of works that mark crucial moments in art history following World War II. In an ambitious gesture to underscore the resonance between art and architecture, this installation, which features some of the Collection’s most outstanding pieces, also showcases the original architecture of the building. The installation celebrates of the diaphanous and luminous spaces of the third floor of the Museum.
This exhibition is inspired both by the Museum’s holdings of singular works by artists and by historical artistic movements that are well represented in the Collection. The presentation thus highlights figures who belonged to the avant-garde of their time and whose contributions chartered new courses in post-war art history. Each gallery offers the chance to view the production of a single artist or a selection of artists who explore shared concerns from different perspectives.
Some spaces on this floor show site-specific installations or single pieces of an experiential character, like those dedicated to Sol LeWitt and El Anatsui. The work by the latter, Rising Sea, is a contemporary sculpture of great importance by the African artist, and is the latest acquisition to join the Collection. Other galleries house thematic selections on the development of abstract art after World War II, or on approaches between abstraction and spirituality, or deal with later artistic languages that developed between 1960 and 1980, such as Pop Art and the presence of popular culture in contemporary art. The displays furthermore include historic documentation on these artistic trends and the artists who contributed to them. Cette
Galleries: third floor
Curator: Lekha Hileman Waitoller, Marta Blàvia
The Exhibition
El Anatsui
Rising Sea, 2019
Aluminum and copper wire
800 x 1400 cm
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
Yayoi Kusama
Infinity Mirrored Room - A Wish for Human Happiness Calling from Beyond the Universe, 2020
Mirrors, wood, LED lighting system, metal and acrylic panel
293.7 × 417 × 417 cm
© YAYOI KUSAMA
Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts
The high number of visitors may affect the wait time to access this limited capacity piece
Did you
know that...?
If Walls Could Talk…
As part of the Didaktika project, the Museum designs educational spaces and organizes complementary activities for the exhibitions, both in the galleries and online, to contribute to the appreciation and understanding of the works on display.
El Anatsui
In 1998, El Anatsui (1944), Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria, began to use bottle caps sourced from alcohol recycling stations in his works.
Jenny Holzer
In 1997, Jenny Holzer (1950) was asked to create a work for a space of her choice in the Museum. She chose gallery 101 (next to the Atrium)
Jeff Koons
In his Celebration series, Jeff Koons (1955) reimagines common items in ultra-polished stainless steel, so that the sculptures’ bright colorful finishes reflect everything around them