TRIP TO BASQUE COUNTRY: Bilbao (3/3)

When you go to Paris, you go see the Tour Eiffel. When you go to New York, it's the Empire State Building. London? Big Ben of course. And for Bilbao, well, Bilbao's unavoidable landmark is of course the Guggenheim museum.

Opened in 1997, which means exactly 20 years ago, no other modern museum has had such a direct and decisive impact on the fame and success of a city than this modern art museum, which cost 100 millions of euros to build.

It is one of the 5 current museums owned and managed by the Fundation Guggenheim and was designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry.

Thanks to my Couchsurfing host, I was able to enter for free because ALL Bilbao residents received for the 20th anniversary a free entrance, and she very generously offered it to me. 

That enabled me to visit its interior but to be frank, the museum is almost better seen from the outside, thanks to its unusual and fluid shapes, which make it almost immediately visible and recognizable among all its peers.

The thing is that it does not have a HUGE collection of works inside... Most of the rooms are exhibiting temporary works. And the permanent collection is quite small, even if it counts some amazing names like Mark Rothko. And the worse is that you are not even allowed to take pictures of it!

                                   

However, there is ONE work which you can photograph and what a work: this Richard Serra's THE MATTER OF TIME. 

7 huge scuptures of sheet of steel shaped into the most amazing shapes, among which you feel like dwarves. 

I must say I'm not so much into modern art, and I may fail to see the point of it all, but walking among these pieces, I felt some kind of physical sensation... 

It is quite an experience, only comparable (at least in my opinion) to the last half-an-hour of Kubrick's A Space Odyssey - if you saw this movie you'll know what I mean.

And if you don't like it, well, you still have the possibility to enjoy a selfie with Jeff Koons' PUPPY at the entrance of the Museum. 

Or if you feel really dark, why not say hello to "maman", the huge spider created by Louise Bourgeois - as you can see it behind me ?

!steemitworldmap 43.268566 lat -2.934465 long TRIP TO EUSKADI! GUGGENHEIM! d3scr