Temporary Exhibitions
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao offers a dynamic program of temporary modern and contemporary art exhibitions that deepen our understanding of art today and give an overview of the international scene in art history.
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 Ten Largest, Childhood, Untitled Series, Group IV, No. 1, 1907
Tempera on paper, mounted on canvas
322 x 239 cm
Courtesy The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Stockholm, HaK 102
©The Hilma af Klint Foundation, Bilbao 2024
Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom
Paul Pfeiffer. Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom presents a selection of photographs, video installations, and sculptures by Paul Pfeiffer (b. 1966, Honolulu, Hawaii), where the artist explores how sporting events and popular culture are currently imbued with rituals similar to those of religion—worship, devotion, veneration. The exhibition begins in gallery 105 and continues in gallery 103.
Pfeiffer appropriates footage from sports or films, which he edits and manipulates with digital software, transforming these images into uncanny scenes set in familiar contexts. In Caryatid (2003, gallery 105), for instance, the artist removes the players from the images, so that the massive cup seems to hover alone before the crowd.
Resorting to a wide range of mediums, from miniature formats to big screens, Pfeiffer brings the collective experience into an intimate encounter with the individual viewer. Moreover, according to his usual process, he lays bare some of the exhibition installation elements, thus exposing what generally remains unseen.
In the hall leading to gallery 103, you will find the educational contents of Didaktika, which focuses on the role of the stadium as a generator of collective experiences.
Paul Pfeiffer
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (07), 2000/24
Matte C-print
146.3 x 182.9 cm
Courtesy of the artist and carlier | gebauer
© Paul Pfeiffer. Courtesy the artist; Paula Cooper Gallery, New York; carlier | gebauer, Berlin/Madrid; Perrotin; and Thomas Dane Gallery, London
