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Express Tour

If you do not have much time, choose the main artistic and architectural features today at the Museum to make the most of your visit.

Atrium
Interior del edificio, Atrio | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Atrium

1st floor, Atrium

Climb your way up to the third floor. The balcony opposite gallery 304 affords breathtaking views of the Atrium–the beating heart of Frank Gehry’s architectural design.

Offering a different perspective on the works of Jenny Holzer, El Anatsui, Sol LeWitt, and Lucio Fontana, among others, it also gives an insight into the interesting dialogue between art and architecture within the building.

The Matter of Time
La Materia del Tiempo | Richard Serra | Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

The Matter of Time

Balcony, 2nd floor

Go up to the second floor of the Museum and take a look from the balcony opposite gallery 204. You will get a panoramic view of the eight monumental sculptures that make The Matter of Time (1994–2005), a permanent installation by Richard Serra. The sculptures posed a huge challenge in terms of both manufacturing and installation, as they were impossibly heavy and yet quite fragile, as they were made of towering weathering steel sheets. It took state-of-the-art technology to make them.

Richard Serra
The Matter of Time , 1994–2005
Weathering Steel
Dimensions variable
Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

Yoshitomo Nara
Proyecto nuevo 1 scaled

Yoshitomo Nara

The exhibition focusing on Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) gathers a selection of his paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics, to which we should add My Drawing Room, an installation recreating the artist’s studio.

During his training in Germany, in the 1990s, Nara developed a new style, turning to cartoonish representations of children and animals. Far from being kawaii (Japanese for “cute”), his characters look naughty – at times, even threatening.

Unruly and rebellious, Nara’s works evoke the lyrics and the tunes of the folk and rock songs from the 1950s and 1960s, which accompanied historical events like the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. As a matter of fact, some of his characters carry anti-war or anti-nuclear messages.

Nara’s paintings are the result of several layers of paint in subtly varied pigments, which the artist applies meticulously throughout the painting process.

Yoshitomo Nara
Midnight Tears, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
240.5 × 220 cm
Collection of the Artist
© Yoshitomo Nara, courtesy Yoshitomo Nara Foundation