Exhibitions

 

 

The museum is reopening the 21 galleries in the old building with the BBKAteak initiative, in which each one will show an unexpected encounter between two artists from the collection. This 'face-to-face' may involve two artists who are distant in time and in cultural and geographic provenance with the goal of sparking stimulating dialogues between old and modern masters that thus relating different styles, interests, formats and disciplines.

The extensive timeline and the richness of the museum's artistic holdings make exhibition alternatives and new narratives possible in order to reformulate the collection and enrich the visit, as it did in 2018 with the unusual organisation of the galleries curated by Kirmen Uribe, ABC. The Alphabet of the Bilbao Museum. At that time, one word per gallery encompassed works from different times, spotlighting the story harboured by each of them. Now, words are giving way to the names of the artists in the collection, their biographies and their magnificent works.

Thus, starting 21 June, visitors may see the museum from a new vantage point, this time based on the rotation of our holdings, which will periodically be updated to provide visibility to more artists and maintain a more dynamic relationship with the public.

Compared to the idea of an anthological exhibition of the collection, at this special time we have decided to offer our visitors a new angle on the museum's art. The spatial grid of the classical galleries in the old building, now restored, offer a sequence of encounters that chain together seamlessly into a loop which starts and ends in the Icaza Hall—once again the museum's main entrance—presided over by Hanging Figures by Juan Muñoz and the classic works by Nemesio Mogrobejo and Moisés Huerta.

Time becomes more flexible, and the freer and more interdisciplinary approach focuses on creative relations to allow the audience to have a more personal visit that seeks to interpret the artworks from new vantage points. With this goal in mind, traditional painting genres—landscapes, still lifes and nudes—coexist with other contemporary interests and disciplines.

As a prologue that explores the relationship between sculpture and architecture, the installation Thirteen to Centaurus opened on 6 May, which emerged from the museum's commission to Sergio Prego (San Sebastián, 1969). It is a pneumatic production on a monumental scale that occupies the galleries that are currently compromised because of their proximity to the construction work, in a clash between today's artistic languages and the classical architectural repertoire of this part of the building.

The museum's architectural metamorphosis is thus reflected in a collection in constant change which also makes it possible to generate constant educational and dissemination activities.