The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents the first publication dedicated to the Museum Collection
From WikiEducators Guggenheim Bilbao
After a few years of curatorial research and editorial work, the Museum has co-published with Tf Editores a comprehensive volume devoted to its artistic holdings entitled Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection, in which 40 internationally renowned historians, curators, and critics join the Guggenheim Museum curators in revealing, page by page, their insights about the works and artists in the Bilbao Collection.
Published in two separate editions, Spanish and English, the book features 62 essays—one per artist—with insights into the 102 artworks in the Collection of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, thereby articulating the coherence of the collection and the guidelines presiding over the acquisitions since 1996.
This and other issues are analyzed both by Juan Ignacio Vidarte in his Presentation to the book and by Francisco Calvo Serraller, author of the introductory text preceding the individual essays. In his pages, Calvo Serraller explores the contemporary art museum scene and contextualizes the criteria underlying the growth of the Collection, which he terms “the soul of the museum.”
This book is the outcome of one of the most important objectives of the Museum as formulated in its very Mission Statement: researching, documenting, and showcasing the Museum’s heritage. Studying and fostering the appreciation of the works it holds is a fundamental part of its essence. After only a few years in the museum arena and having reached a considerably consolidated status as a museum institution, this kind of project was necessary in order to offer the audience a reference point for these works and their contexts, unveiling the specificities of each artwork and artist in the Collection. Readers will be able to extract a wealth of information and the opinions of authorized voices to better understand the value and meaning of the works comprising the Collection of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. As an appendix to the essays, the book includes an up-to-date chronology of the artists.
The Acquisitions of the Museum
The program of acquisitions for the Museum collection focuses on works produced from the second half of the twentieth century on that not only complement the artistic holdings of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and contribute to building on the strengths of the Permanent Collection of the Guggenheim Museums, but help to create a unique, distinctive identity for the Collection. In carrying out these acquisitions, certain parameters have been established to guide and mold the growth of the Collection. The first has to do with the goal of acquiring works that are of particular significance to art history—works that have served as models or sources of inspiration for other artists, or that somehow represent the pinnacle or synthesis of an artist’s career. A few examples these are Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1952–53), Joseph Beuys’s sculpture Lightning with Stag in Its Glare (1958–85), or Cy Twombly’s cycle of nine oil paintings entitled Nine Discourses on Commodus (1963).
Another acquisition guideline focuses on collecting a number of works by the same artist so that together they can be analyzed or regarded as compendiums or retrospectives of his or her creative career. Along this line, works by Eduardo Chillida or Anselm Kiefer, among others, have been added to the museum’s holdings.
Basque and Spanish art is particularly important in the Collection, and is represented by works of different generations of artists, from Jorge Oteiza, Antonio Saura or Antoni Tàpies; Cristina Iglesias, Susana Solano or Juan Muñoz; to Ibon Aranberri, Javier Pérez or Sergio Prego. One third of the works in the Museum collection were created by Basque artists.
Finally, iconic architecture has guided the acquisition of site-specific works to be displayed in the unique spaces of the Frank Gehry-designed building, or pieces that establish a particularly enriching dialogue with the location in which they are placed. Examples include Jenny Holzer’s Installation for Bilbao (1997); Daniel Buren’s Arcos rojos/Arku gorriak (2007); or Richard Serra’s colossal sculptural installation The Matter of Time (1994–2005), the artist’s most comprehensive reflection to date on the nature of sculpture and its relationship with space.
