Guggenheim Bilbao makes modern art accessible, powerful and fun

The Northwestern Girls' Trip has been taken by a trio for 15 years. Brought together by our university, we discovered that we share remarkably similar styles in the pace, composition, favoured destinations and hotel styles of our holiday destinations. Trios can make accommodation tricky, however, so we've always been open to the addition of a fourth. But where to find her?

This year, we welcomed Suzy Christopher. Though not a Northwestern graduate, I hired her out of Cardiff's excellent journalism programme back in 1999 and she worked for me for years at both my PR agency and BT. She's also become a dear friend. And since, during those working years, I passed on everything I could about the art of journalism, we all decided to convey upon her an honorary degree from the Medill School of Journalism so we can officially call her a "Northwestern Girl". As her initiation into the clan, she's guest-written today's blog post.

As we arrived in Bilbao, the Guggenheim rose up on our right like a slightly bonkers, silver-scaled galleon. We learned from our guide later on that its architect, Frank Gehry, drew his inspiration from the city’s sea-faring/fishing heritage, which makes this first impression rather apt. The building is stunning ... a work of art in its own right ... and merits closer inspection. 

There are several large sculptures around its perimeter, including Jeff Koons’ Puppy – a huge floral west highland terrier ‘sitting’ at the gallery’s entrance plaza. Admittedly we couldn’t see him in all his spectacular glory on the day of our visit, as he was getting a new coat of flowers! But the hoarding around him, shielding the gardeners at work, showed us what we were missing. 

Walking down some steps to the left of the main entrance, towards the riverside, we came across a tower of silver baubles ... Anish Kapoor’s Tall Tree ... and in the distance we could see one of Louise Bourgeois’ spiders. As a self-confessed arachnophobe, I admit that I didn’t want to get too close to that one! 

Above it we could see the bridge we’d driven across minutes earlier. We learned from our guide Mikel (read about him and the rest of our day with him here) that the red-arched structure over the bridge ... clearly visible from our vantage point by the river ... is also an art installation. This is clearly a city that takes modern art seriously. 

Moving inside the gallery, I, for one, felt that the exhibits couldn’t be as interesting as the exterior of the building. But I was very happy to be proved wrong. 

We started on the third (top) floor with the ‘masterpieces’ – a permanent collection. On first glance this is a sparse collection of pieces that could easily seem a little ‘so what?’, but on closer inspection and quiet contemplation the collection is much richer. It includes signature works by leading post-war and contemporary artists including Mark Rothko, Yves Klein and Anselm Kiefer. 

(The collection is well chosen for those wary of modern art. Even the more challenging pieces are visually beautiful, while the audio guide that comes with your admission gives excellent insight. Klein's Large Blue Anthropometry is a gorgeous celebration of blue and white: he captured movement by having naked models lie and roll on the canvas. Kinky, but lovely results. Getting to know local sculptor Eduardo Chillida was a joy: he combines natural rock with smooth planes and uses what's not there (the air itself) as another element for beguiling results. Keifer's The Land of the Two Rivers (above) was my favourite in the museum and I'd happily come visit it regularly if I were a local. Using heavily encrusted blue. green, white and black paint, he creates something between painting and sculpture that's a representation of the land between the Tigris and Euphrates. There are sophisticated levels of political commentary here, but you can also just stand and get lost in the beauty of the landscape, which actually seems to get less abstract the more you stare at it. Modern art at its best. -Ed.)

When we visited (28th October 2017) there were also two visiting exhibitions: Bill Viola and Anni Albers. I confess I only bobbed my head into the Albers exhibition, but lingered a while in the Viola show. It proved intriguing. 

The first room I entered really challenged me – there was a revolving screen in the centre of the room, spinning 360 degrees on an axis, which forced me to flatten my back to the wall. The images on the screen depicted open heart surgery. Both the physical and visual discomfort led me to move quickly into the next room. The screen here showed a man-made pool in a lush, green environment that reminded me of a rainforest or tropical retreat. After watching in silence for what seemed like a five minutes, but may have been a minute or less, I witnessed a man walking up to the edge of the pool and then – several frames later – jumping. The image of the figure in mid-air hung motionless for several seconds and then I saw ripples in the pool below – it was like a magical ‘Harry Potter’ image. 

My final and most impactful memory of the Viola exhibition was a video piece with two screens, side by side. One (on the left) captured a beautiful, serene scene of a woman lighting candles in the darkness ... almost church-like in atmosphere ... while the second screen (on the right) showed a man in the distance, again in darkness, walking forcefully towards a fire which was right in the foreground of the screen. I sat for a while on a bench in front of both screens and as the sequence progressed, the woman had lit all the candles and walked towards the camera, seeming to cross a shallow pool of water, and the man walked up to – and through – the fire towards the camera. I wondered if it was meant to depict heaven (on the left) and hell (on the right) but what surprised me most was that I felt a tear roll down my cheek. I don’t know why exactly. But isn’t that the point of art? To evoke emotion in the viewer? 

After feeling quite overwhelmed by Viola I headed down to the ground floor to experience the largest exhibition within the gallery – Richard Serra’s The Matter Of Time. Made up of eight ginormous steel structures that fill the entire ground floor space, these sculptures elicit shrieks of delight and wonder from the visitors moving through the various coils and waves that make up each piece. I saw visitors of all ages – from 70 years to seven months old – enjoying the experience. 

I couldn’t think of a more exhilarating way to finish a gallery visit. I experienced sheer delight and left beaming. Suffice to say we were all surprised that we’d enjoyed the interior of the Guggenheim and the exhibits we’d each, individually, chosen to spend time with, more than we thought before we went inside. 

The photographs really don’t do it justice – please go and discover for yourself what moves/surprises/excites you.