Exploring the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao

[Ad- gifted experience] Back in 2020, I visited the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, but as with any museum, a lot of the exhibitions have changed. The Guggenheim Museum is a beautiful building, both inside and out. The outside looks like scales of metal, with different statues and structures around the outside. At the front, there is a giant dog covered in flowers, at the back a large spider creature and a bunch of silver balls all stacked up on top of each other. Just going around the outside is beautiful. At the time that I went to the museum, there were a lot of fantastic exhibitions to take a look at as well.

The Matter of Time

The Matter of Time is an exhibition that you can always find inside the Guggenheim. It’s massive, so there isn’t really a way to move it out! These structures are like giant pieces of metal and wood, that you can walk around and go through. Walking into them feels almost like getting lost. None of these massive objects are stuck to the ground and instead hold their own. This piece was created by Richard Serra, who died earlier in this year. Inside another small side room, you can actually see a bunch of the models of the area that you walked through, reading his notes on how it would be created. Within this room, you can also read all about the passage of time and how time effects different people, which is what Serra was aiming for. You can go to the second floor and also see the giant display above.

Hilma af Klint

Hilma af Klint had a large amount of space, showing off the Temple Paintings and a bunch of other art, all created during an interesting time in history. There was a short video documentary down one of the halls, talking about Hilma af Klint’s relationship with the spirit realm. She believed many of the things she saw were hidden from the eye and a lot of her 193 paintings and drawings were unlike anything created before her. She spent a lot of time curating her own art, which shows in this exhibition. One of her visions included a bunch of paintings which represented different stages of life, from childhood to adulthood, which was probably my favorite bit of her work. This part of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao starts off with very abstract pictures with lots of color, that slowly change and change to have words and numbers, before becoming ridged with specific places for each of the aspects of color. She had help in some of her art from The Five, her spiritual group.

Color and Pop Art

On the next floor, there was a giant showcase of pop-art. This gallery featured a bunch of different pieces of art that were by a bunch of artists who challenged the notions of taste and high culture. The room features a bunch of reflections on popular pop art artists that have inspired these pieces. It was bright and vibrant, creating something that felt happy and joyful. There was a giant wall of different colors that posed as a piece of art as well – it was a shame they didn’t have the instructions on how this piece was created, as the artist normally leaves detailed instructions which are up for interpretation, so their art designs are never the same way twice.

Individual pieces of the Guggenheim Museum collection

There were a lot of individual pieces that were on display in the Guggenheim Museum. One of the more breathtaking pieces was a giant wall of metal – like a sheet of metal all pushed together. This was made of recycled wrappers, bottle caps and the like, all of which were pinned to make a sort of sheet. It’s beautiful to look at from far away. There were other pieces of art, a few sculptures, and an interactive area where people could add feelings about individual pieces of art. The light up, sort of ominous area of the museum was still there too. I am more of a bright and colorful person, but I really enjoyed everything all around the museum.

Giant Structures

The weather when we went to the Guggenheim Museum was pretty terrible, so we didn’t explore the outside. From the inside, we could see the giant creepy spider that looms over the back and from the entrance we saw the flower dog, which is always so welcoming. There was also a giant flower-like structure inside, hanging off from one of the higher areas of the building. I was delighted to be back at the Guggenheim Museum and really enjoyed walking around it with a bunch of new friends.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!