Bicycle Metal Sculpture

Posted in Decorative Art Ideas on 03/22/2010 08:30 pm by admin

bicycle metal sculpture

Trip To The Guggenheim Whilst Studying Spanish In Bilbao

In my first week in Bilbao I was amazed at how many things there were to see and do around the city. Before I arrived I was especially interested in visiting the world famous Guggenheim so I was more than happy when I was able to visit this art museum with the interns and students of Instituto Hemingway.

On arrival I was taken in by the unusual, very contemporary design of the building itself. It was designed by the American architect Frank O. Gehry. As Bilbao is a port town, the building is intended to resemble a ship. The random curves and titanium plates of the building also give the impression of a fish. The first thing I noticed however was the large statue in front of the building which resembled a dog and which was covered completely in flowers. I later learned that this was a work by Jeff Koons entitled Puppy.

As we entered the building I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no queue despite the warnings hour long waits I had read on tourist websites. The receptionist was very friendly and kindly provided us with a very useful audio guide and a place to check in our bags and coats leaving us free to wonder around the museum.

On the ground floor there was a room filled by very large and striking sculptures which formed the work entitled The Matter of Time by Richard Serra. The work consists of eight extremely large steel sculptures which form curving and spiral paths which you can walk round. On the same floor there is a room with small scale models of the sculptures where you can see the shapes of the curves and spirals without walking around the sculptures themselves.

The ground floor also displays the Guggenheim's permanent collection which includes German Expressionist and Abstract Expressionist Art, abstract and Surrealist painting and Sculpture, the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of Justin K. Thannhauser and important works by Rebay and Katherine S. Dreier. I found Marc Chagal's Green Violinist (Violiniste) and Franz Marc's Yellow Cow particularly striking in this collection.

The second floor there is an exhibition which focuses on contemporary art throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s with famous works such as Mark Rothko's Untitled and Andy Worhol's One Hundred and Fifty Multicoloured Marilyns. This exhibition began on the 16th February this year and will run until the 16th January 2011.

At the moment the third floor is dedicated to a temporary exhibition of the sculpture series Gluts by Robert Rauchenberg which will run until the 10th September this year. In Gluts, Rauchenberg creates unusual and interesting sculptures from scrap metal such as old road signs and parts of bicycles found in junk yards. The sculptures were inspired by Rauchenberg's criticism of the greed which caused an economic recession in Texas caused by a surplus or ‘glut' in the supply of oil available in the market. I found this exhibition particularly intriguing so if you have the chance to visit the museum at some point this year I would highly recommend it.

All in all I feel that the Guggenheim has rightfully earned its reputation as a world class contemporary art museum and is well worth visiting during your stay here in Bilbao.

Naomi Rendell
Student at the University of Edinburgh, currently in Bilbao

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