09/04/14: Guggenheim museum Bilbao, Spain – KairUs.org

guggenheim bilbao, kairus.org, Andreas zingerle

Designed by American architect Frank Gehry, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao building represents a magnificent example of the most groundbreaking 20th-century architecture. With 24,000 m2, of which 11,000 are dedicated to exhibition space, the Museum represents an architectural landmark of audacious configuration and innovating design, providing a seductive backdrop for the art exhibited in it. Altogether, Gehry’s design creates a spectacular sculpture-like structure, perfectly integrated within Bilbao’s urban pattern and its surrounding area. (taken from http://www.guggenheim-bilbao.es/en/the-building/)

The Visitors (2012) by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson. A nine-screen multi-channel video installation, The Visitors documents a musical performance staged at historic Rokeby Farm in upstate New York, where the artist has been a frequent visitor since 2007. Kjartansson assembled a group of friends to help him produce this work, including several musicians from his hometown of Reykjavik.

The piece takes its title from the final album released by the pop band ABBA. It features lyrics based on a poem written by Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir and musical arrangements by the artist and Davíð Þór Jónsson. Each musician was recorded individually, so that every screen except one in the video installation shows a different participant in a separate setting in the farmhouse or on the grounds. When all of these single takes are combined, the performance emerges and they make sense as a whole.

Jenny Holzer began her first series, Truisms, in 1977 as a distillation of an erudite reading list from the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, where she was a student; by 1979 she had written several hundred of these one-liners. Beginning with A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE GOES A LONG WAY and ending with YOUR OLDEST FEARS ARE YOUR WORST ONES, the Truisms employ a variety of voices and express a wide spectrum of biases and beliefs.

Jeff Koons Puppy, 1992 Stainless steel, soil, and flowering plants 1,240 x 830 x 910 cm Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Detail of Kapoor’s monumental Tall Tree and the Eye (2009), recently installed outside the museum alongside outdoor works by Louise Bourgeois, Daniel Buren, Jeff Koons, and Fujiko Nakaya, consists of 73 reflective spheres anchored around three axes. This illusionistic work continues the artist’s examination of complex mathematical and structural principles embodied in sculptural form. The mirrored surfaces of the orbs reflect and refract one another, simultaneously creating and dissolving form and space. Images of the surrounding city, including the Nervión river, Buren’s sculptural intervention on La Salve Bridge (Arcos rojos/Arku gorriak, 2007), and the museum itself, are cast into dynamic suspension. Kapoor reminds us of the instability and ephemerality of our vision-and by extension of our world.

Jeff Koons Tulips, 1995–2004 High chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating 203 x 460 x 520 cm Version 4/5 Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Guggenheim museum Bilbao Spain, kairus.org, Andreas Zingerle

Entrance to the museum

The Matter of Time by Richard Serra allows the viewer to perceive the evolution of the artist’s sculptural forms, from the relative simplicity of a double ellipse to the complexity of a spiral. The last two pieces of this sculpture are created from sections of toruses and spheres that produce different effects on the movement and perception of the viewer. These are unexpectedly transformed as the visitor walks through and around them, creating an unforgettable, dizzying feeling of space in motion.