Family Tour
Come to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao with your family! We have prepared lots of activities and materials for kids, so that you can explore the Museum together. Remember that you can enjoy but you cannot touch art, and that it is better if you hold your kids’ hands. Thank you!
The Museum building
1st floor, Atrium
There is a lot to see in the Museum’s Atrium. The materials used to cover the galleries on the outside can give you an idea of their shapes inside. Can you spot the differences between the galleries clad in titanium and those covered in limestone?
Permanent and Site-specific Works
Plaza, terrace
Some of the works in the Collection are permanently on display either inside or outside Frank Gehry’s building. They include a few site-specific installations designed by contemporary artists especially for the places where they stand.
Puppy, a monumental West Highland White Terrier pup covered in flowering plants, welcomes visitors to the Museum. Have you ever thought about how this giant living sculpture by Jeff Koons is watered? An efficient, sustainable irrigation system is used for Puppy, based on a mix of technologies, bringing as much water as each plant needs—no more, no less.
The Exhibitions
1st and 3rd floors
The Museum’s exhibitions give you a lot of opportunities to learn about the new forms of creation and understand works of art. Walk around The Matter of Time, Richard Serra’s installation, exploring the sculptures and looking at their morphing shapes. After your exploration, climb up to the balcony overlooking the installation for a broader view. You will be astonished!
Richard Serra
The Matter of Time , 1994–2005
Weathering Steel
Dimensions variable
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa
Restrooms/Baby Changing Facilities
1st floor, basement
You will find restrooms on every level in the Museum and baby changing facilities on the 1st floor and the basement.
Other services
1st floor, Coatroom
At the Museum cloakroom you will find strollers and baby backpacks to carry your kids around more comfortably.
Guggenheim Bilbao Bar and Restaurants
Bar and Restaurants
The Bar Guggenheim Bilbao serves snacks, pintxos, pastries, and beverages, plus a menu of the day. In addition, the Museum affords two world-class culinary experiences, at the Nerua Guggenheim Bilbao, an haute cuisine restaurant, and the Bistro Guggenheim Bilbao, a restaurant wrapped in a more informal atmosphere. The availability of this service depends on the specifics of the health situation related to COVID-19.
Yoshitomo Nara
In the exhibition dedicated to Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959), you can see paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics, as well as an installation: My Drawing Room 2008, Bedroom Included, a small-size architectural structure made with recycled materials, recreating the artist’s studio. Look through the window to see what is inside: drawings, colored pencils, paintings, sculptures, and figurines collected by the artist. You will also hear music – tunes from the 1960s and 1970s, the songs Nara usually listens during his creative process.
In the 1980s, Yoshitomo moved to Germany to study Art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He did not speak German, but soon he realized he could use art to communicate with people, to tell them about his ideas and feelings. That is when he started painting his naughty-looking children. Take a look at Missing in Action, for instance, which he painted in 1999. What is this girl up to? What do you think she is hiding?
Yoshitomo Nara
My Drawing Room, 2008, Bedroom Included, 2008
Installation, mixed media
Approx. 301.5 × 375 × 380 cm
Collection of the Artist
© Yoshitomo Nara, courtesy Yoshitomo Nara Foundation
Hilma af Klint
On the Museum’s second floor you will find and exhibition of some of the most relevant works by Swedish artist and pioneer of abstraction Hilma af Klint (b. 1862; d. 1944).
Hilma af Klint’s works were visual representations of complex spiritual ideas, predating the first purely abstract compositions by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Vasily Kandinsky, and other creators. Inspired by Theosophy, Anthroposophy, and other spiritual and religious movements, af Klint deals with subjects that include the different stages of life, the evolution, and others. She also drew inspiration from science, as attested by the series shown in gallery 202, dedicated to subatomic particles, and the numerous entries on the subject in her notebooks.
Having filled over 20,000 pages with her notes, af Klint expressed her wish for her work to remain unseen for twenty years after her death. Accordingly, she left a treasure of abstract work for future generations to find.
Hilma af Klint
The Swan, The SUW/UW Series, Group IX/SUW, No. 13, 1915
Oil on canvas
148.5 x 151 cm
Courtesy The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm, HaK 161
©The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Bilbao 2024