Monday, December 16, 2013

Museo Guggenheim Bilbao

Okay, last, but not least, Karin and I's last day in Bilbao!

In the morning, we got up bright and early, we stopped at a bakery next door to get a croissant for breakfast and then we headed off to the Guggenheim Museum. I really don't have a lot to say about it, besides it was really cool! With our tickets, we were forced to get the audio guides for a little extra money, but I am SO thankful that we did! You could honestly go through the museum in an hour if you just briefly looked at the art, because the museum really isn't that big. However, because we got the audio guides, we spent several hours in the museum. It was great because we learned more about the works too! For example, one artist took famous works of art and eliminated all of the people, so it was just the landscape or the room. I never would have noticed that without the audio guide. Another artist, Erlea Maneros Zabala, who was both Karin and I's favorite, worked a lot with photography and news articles. The majority of her works were centered around mass media and how photos from the news are used to make something seem more beautiful or acceptable. For example, an explosion is a deadly and scary thing, however in a photo it can be seen as something beautiful. It was an interesting exhibit and probably one of my favorites out of the whole museum.
A man looking at the work of Erlea Maneros Zabala
This particular series was a series of photographs taken
of Zabala's computer screen of different museums
around the world. It was pretty cool.
My other favorite exhibit was one that is permanent called The Matter of Time designed by Richard Serra. It is a series of eight huge steel sculptures that are free standing. You can walk through them all. They consist of spirals, ellipses, curvy lines, etc. It was pretty cool and we spent a lot of time walking through them all. I think a cool thing about it (that I learned from the audio guide) is that Richard Serra just designs them, but they are obviously huge sculptures so a steel contractor has to build them.
 
One last thing that I like about the museum is that the rooms were huge! High ceilings, very big, and barely filled. It seemed like so much more art could go into the rooms, but I kind of liked that they were slightly bare. Plus it would take a full day to go through with the audio guide if there were more works of art.


Inside the Guggenheim
After the museum, Karin and I stopped at two places to get pintxos, which are pretty much tapas on bread. Before we went to Bilbao, everyone kept saying, "Try the pintxos." To be honest, I don't really know what was so special about them. It wouldn't be something important that I tell someone to do if they were going to go to Bilbao, but they were still good. After a little while of sitting at Lenny's apartment, we left Bilbao and our weekend was over. We made it back to Madrid a little after 10 p.m. and I just relaxed for the rest of the night. There you have it, three days in the north of Spain. It was fun, I would suggest it. Especially the Guggenheim and San Sebastián. Hasta luego.



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