A Day Out at the Guggenheim Museum

[Ad- gifted experience] Recently, I went to Bilbao, Spain and got to check out the lovely Guggenheim Museum. This three floor museum has a bunch of different exhibitions, showcases, interactive areas and more for you to explore and enjoy. Though the cafe was completely booked, myself and my friend went in to take a look at all of the art this museum had to offer! Many of the areas were no photo zones, so the only images I have here are ones that were allowed to be taken within the museum – mainly on a few of the exhibitions on the bottom floor. I am only going to talk about some of the exhibitions, as there is really a lot to see – this museum is well worth a day trip!

Jesse Jones: Tremble Tremble

The Jesse Jones: Tremble Tremble exhibition runs from October 31st 2019 until March 1st, 2020. Unlike most of the other areas of the Guggenheim Museum, this area combines audio, video and sculptures to create an experience for viewers to enjoy. A dancing witch appears on the screens dotted around the room, talking about becoming a part of the land and about the world around her. Following the idea of rituals, she appears and disappears – talks and is silent – watches and then some of the sculptures in the room light up and change. As the two screens showcase different bits of video, the entire exhibition is one that captivates it’s audience. We stayed in this area for quite some time, as often the videos would end, the room would light up, but when it resumed the videos had not looped and instead showed new areas, new dances or spoke about new topics to the viewers. It’s a really interesting way to view rituals and witches.

Kunsthalle Bremen Masterpieces: From Delacroix to Beckmann

The Kunsthalle Bremen Masterpieces: From Delacroix to Beckmann exhibition runs from October 25th, 2019 to February 16th, 2020. This is a collection of primarily paintings, showcasing French and German works of art made between the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. These were the more known artists within the museum, complete with a vibrant Vincent Van Gogh piece that depicted a colourful farm land and three different Pablo Picasso paintings that depicted various women in different styles. A few statues were also dotted around the three massive rooms, but all of these works of art were displayed in brilliant frames and really were breathtaking to look at. This is an exhibition well worth taking a look at.

The Matter of Time

The Matter of Time was the first area we actually explored in the Guggenheim Museum – this was basically a huge room full of metal circles and paths, which can be walked down and through. Using the translator tour guide, we listened to how these massive structures were built, with the human body in mind. Despite being curved walls and long tunnels, none of these structures actually were stuck to the floor and instead held on their own. In another, smaller room there were the tiny models of these large pieces as well as a lot of information on the author and why they were created.

Thomas Struth

I am unsure what the name of Thomas Struth’s instillation was, but it was really beautiful that ranged through photographs of Disneyland without any characters, loads of flowers, portraits of families and ruins in war torn areas. The range dips in and out of each category, all showing a range of skills and emotions. Initially, we were captivated by the pictures of Disney, without any characters or even people in each shot, showing a colorful ghost town. Moving onto the bright and colorful flowers was lovely, before vising the war torn images and then the various portraits. Struth took pictures of loads of different things, and all of them are beautiful to look at.

Optical Illusions

One of the most interesting exhibitions within the Guggenheim Museum was a large room of optical illusions. Squares on backgrounds that looked flat with the rest, yet were popped out, on stands moving forward. Line art that made your mind twist, loads of different strange things to look at that twisted your mind. There was a bump in the middle of the floor, made with long pin-like spikes, that looked almost like there was a full red ball in the middle, when in fact, those were just painted pins. Some areas of the optical illusions section were interactive, like a huge area of plastic tubing that you could walk through and a plastic room of metal tubing that makes noise as you clank about. I could not wrap my mind around how one would make this type of art, but being able to see it was a big mind twist!

Outdoor Structures

Not only is in the inside of the Guggenheim Museum full of art, but so is the outside. A giant flowered puppy stands tall above the museum out the front, full of color and light. Out the back, you can find a strange spider creature, a pile of silver balls reaching up to the sky ,and a colorful bouquet of balloon-looking objects on a balcony out the side of the museum. From every angle this museum is beautiful, as the structure itself is a work of art. One evening, I was walking through the area, and the water feature outside the museum started blowing fire for a few seconds, a quick display, that caught my attention. The outside reflects the beautiful works on the inside, giving you a taste of what to expect when you come on in.

There are many, many other exhibitions and works of art, from an area about taxidermy in animals in comparison to medical-looking machinery to a giant light up wall that seems to talk about a breaking relationship. Walking around took us an entire day, we left around lunch and came back a bit later, with our return bracelets in hand. It’s an enjoyable experience for those who really love specific artists or those who just like seeing beautiful bits of art.

Check out our other Days Out!