A day at the Museum

Lobby

We suggest you start your tour of the Museum at ZERO, an immersive experience with a powerful visual language and an amazing design.

1st floor, Atrium

The Atrium is the beating heart of the building, connecting the interior to the exterior. The walkways pumping visitors into or out of it offer new standpoints to observe the artwork on view.

1st floor, gallery 104

You can experience and activate time and space by wondering about The Matter of Time, an installation by Richard Serra (1994-2005).

1st floor, Atrium

Standing in dialogue with the interior and the exterior of the building designed by Frank Gehry, site-specific works by contemporary artists make a significant part of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection.

Plaza

If you need a break or a snack, go to the Bar Guggenheim Bilbao, next to the Bistró, in the Museum plaza.

1st floor, terrace

From the riverfront terrace you can see how the Museum is seamlessly integrated into the surrounding cityscape in terms of materials (glass, titanium, limestone) and how it connects with the surrounding buildings and structures.

3rd floor

The third floor houses Works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection, a journey through some of the leading art movements in the second half of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, including works by renowned artists like Cristina Iglesias, Sol LeWitt, or Mark Rothko belonging to the Museum Collection.

Restaurants

The Museum affords two spaces with different culinary experiences: Nerua Guggenheim Bilbao, an haute cuisine restaurant, and the Bistró Guggenheim Bilbao, a restaurant wrapped in a more informal atmosphere.

1st floor

The Museum Store/Bookstore offers a wide range of items, including design objects, exhibition catalogues, books, and all kinds of gifts. Discounts available for Museum Members. You can also buy from home visiting our online Store.

04.11.2025–09.28.2025

Helen Frankenthaler: Painting Without Rules, in gallery 105, is an exhibition focusing on one of the leading figures of American abstract art in the twentieth century: Helen Frankenthaler (1928–2011). Structured to mirror the stages in her life and artistic career, the exhibition shows how Frankenthaler’s free, boundless creativity opened up new avenues for abstract painting.

The exhibition begins in the 1950s, when the young artist, inspired by Jackson Pollock, popularized a new painting technique: soak-stain, which involves pouring thinned-down paint onto a flat, unprimed canvas, allowing the paint to soak into the fabric and create soft, fluid washes of color. In the 1960s, her paintings become clearer and more structured, as shown in the big canvas where color seems to float at its own pace. In the 1970s and 1980s, her work becomes more lyrical and atmospheric, her landscapes – like Eastern Light (1982) – capturing light, calm, and the ocean.

The exhibition also follows her personal and creative ties with other artists, including Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, David Smith, and Anthony Caro, whose works are shown as well. Frankenthaler shared ideas, friendship, and admiration with them all. In her final years, Frankenthaler’s works on paper became more essential and intimate, as a response to her creative principle: painting without rules.

Living Architecture: Gehry

March 7–October 19, 2025

The exhibition in gallery 208 marks the launch of in situ, a new series of site-specific installations that push the boundaries of contemporary practices in dialog with the Museum’s architecture.

in situ: Refik Anadol presents Living Architecture: Gehry (2025), a groundbreaking audiovisual installation by Turkish-American media artist Refik Anadol, a pioneer in the aesthetics of data visualization and AI art. Anadol reimagines Frank Gehry’s architectural legacy in a unique immersive experience in which the latter’s designs are reinterpreted and reimagined with the help of AI.

Using a custom-built AI model developed by Refik Anadol Studio that feeds on a vast archive of ethically sourced, open-access imagery, sketches, and blueprints, Anadol explores machines’ ability to “dream”, transforming Gehry’s architectural language into ever-changing landscapes with stunning abstract configurations. Living Architecture: Gehry unfolds across six interconnected chapters, surrounding visitors within the walls of the vast gallery 208, challenging their perceptions, and encouraging them to think about the impact of AI on the future of creativity and the way in which we understand the world through technology.

In the Didaktika educational area in gallery 204, we will find audio and video resources that will help you understand the creative process behind Refik Anadol and his multidisciplinary team’s works.

04.03.2025 – 09.07.2025

The Film & Video gallery, dedicated to video art and motion pictures, is currently housing the result of the convergence of Vito Acconci (New York, 1940–2017) and Sergio Prego (Donostia-San Sebastián, 1969), who met at Acconci Studio in New York, became friends, and worked together between 1996 and 2002.

Although they belonged to different generations, Acconci and Prego shared the idea that body action not only takes place in space but transforms space too. While the former was interested in everyday gestures, the latter focused on how sculpture interventions changed the spaces where they were set.

This itinerary begins in the hall of gallery 103, where Acconci’s sound piece Running Tape (1969) enters into a dialogue with several of Prego’s single-channel videos. The main gallery has been transformed into an immersive space thanks to a site-specific design by Prego. Visitors are encouraged to wander about, in an intertwining of architecture, image, and action where Acconci’s works are screened on the unusual surfaces of the installation.