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<\/a><\/p>\nThe awe inspiring new cathedral comes complete with altar pieces dotted round the exterior, most notably a sublime 43-foot-high flowered dog, clothed in an array of blooms that are kept fresh with regular changes throughout the year. Puppy, by American artist Jeff Koons, acts as a quiet guard dog ushering in the unwashed through a rather nondescript museum entrance. On the more impressive river side, three much-larger-than-life sculptures mark out this cathedral as something special: Louise Bourgeois\u2019s giant spider Maman<\/a> (1999), Jeff Koons\u2019s coloured steel Tulips<\/a> (2004), and Anish Kapoor\u2019s shiny steel Tall Tree & The Eye<\/a> (2009).<\/p>\n Bourgeois\u2019s giant Maman is truly scary while Tall Tree & The Eye, a collection of 73 stainless steel reflective spheres, shimmers beyond reach of its tentacle legs. Designated as \u201cscientific rationalism\u201d and a \u201cdynamic interplay of light,\u201d Kapoor\u2019s circular modern cross shines with hope next to the clutches of the devil spider. We, the viewers, as always are caught in between.<\/p>\n Of course, the real art is the Guggenheim itself, an exquisite abstract sculpture ship, praised by some as the most important building of the twentieth century. Built by licence through the Guggenheim Foundation (after Solomon in New York and Penny in Venice) for $89 million, the Bilbao version reportedly paid for itself after only five years. Not bad to remake a lost industrial city of almost 1 million. As Gehry noted when he received the 2014 Prince of Asturias award for arts, \u201cBilbao\u2019s business model was amazing\u201d (Frank O. Gehry Architect \u2013 Royal or Rebel?<\/a>).<\/p>\n More Gehry than Guggenheim, it has always been difficult to install sufficiently iconic art within its massive interior. This summer, exhibitions by Koons and New York street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (a.k.a.<\/em>, Son of Warhol) try to expand the art to monument, along with the permanently displayed works of Richard Serra and Jenny Holzer. Love him or loathe him, Koons is one artist whose works can fit the scale required of the mammoth container. The more traditional stuff just gets lost in the massiveness.<\/p>\n The \u20ac15 entrance cost includes a non-optional audio guide, turning the gallery experience into an intellectual tour rather than a usual do-what-you-want sashay through the local hall of fame of past masters. With audio guide in hand, one happily partakes of the ordered 3D walking tour, to be sure an improvement over lonelier unguided visits. Alternately narrated by a posh British man and a spirited American woman, we are told that the \u201cah-trium\u201d is the heart, pumping people through the arteries of Gehry\u2019s self-styled \u201cfree-associated building.\u201d The titanium exterior was computer designed and the smooth limestone interior tiles created by an automated robotic system. It takes little effort to see that the art inside has been similarly constructed.<\/p>\n The highlight of the permanent collection is Richard Serra\u2019s The Matter of Time<\/a> (2005), 20 massive rusted steel \u201cshapes,\u201d leaning elliptical sculptures that snake along most of the ground floor in a dedicated room (The Fish Gallery), aptly sponsored by the giant steel company Arcelor. The 14-foot-high pieces are truly monumental, brutally simplistic, perhaps the only kind of art that can compete with the building itself, like primitive hedge mazes arranged in perfect leaning balance, defying gravity. Inside, one is subsumed by optical illusions and falling feelings, as the statues of secular saints prod us to thoughts about creation. A video shows the exacting task of creating, transporting (truck, ship, crane), and installing the mammoth works.<\/p>\n In reality, Serra\u2019s sculptures are interactive play things, an extension of the building itself enjoyed by the hundreds walking through \u2013 touching, clapping, snapping \u2013 although one is technically forbidden to interact too closely, according to the prominently displayed communion rules: no touching, no photos, no sacrilegious remarks. It\u2019s a majestically playful adult playground for the modern adherent, releasing one from an overly structured world. New interactive secular play, ever disorientating, almost ecstatic, a quest through the maze of ideas as if to a supposed end.<\/p>\n Control seems to be the recurring theme throughout our stage-managed interaction. In Jeff Koons: A Retrospective (June 9 \u2013 September 27), viewers are instructed upon entry that \u201cPhotos (without flash) for private, non-commercial use are exceptionally allowed in the marked spots.\u201d The \u201cmarked spots\u201d were indicated on the floor with a camera icon and PHOTOSPOT text, art in itself if you want to think postmodern, though there were only four such marked spots over ten rooms and two floors \u2013 in front of Lobster, Popeye, Balloon Dog (Red), and Michael Jackson and Bubbles (all of which would cost a cool \u20ac250 millionish if you so desired to own them).<\/p>\n Each marked spot had an accompanying partner \u201cstand spot\u201d indicated by a pair of shoes icon, presumably to include selected friends in a choreographed peripheral position, like a clingy medieval cherub, but were so peripheral it was difficult to arrange object and friend in the same shot.<\/p>\n A thoughtful attempt to include the viewer in the art? More like reemphasizing that we are the outsiders straining to play with the big boys. An afterthought essentially. Interact only as commanded. One can\u2019t allow any old interaction as in the poor 12-year-old boy who put a hole in a \u20ac1.3 million painting<\/a> after tripping at a Taiwanese museum. Tsk tsk.<\/p>\n On the accompanying audio guide, Koons’s creativity is said to be \u201cwithout ego,\u201d though one wonders how such self-consciously created objects can be egoless. Irony is the height of ego. It is nonetheless amusing to browse through room after room of big iconic stuff in a gallery that was made for big iconic stuff.<\/p>\n Indeed, to understand Koons is to understand big. His larger-than-life sculptures poke fun with convention, alas itself rather conventional after too much of the same. He makes small big, rough smooth, ugly pretty, but tries too hard to control the user\u2019s interaction, almost anal as he attempts to program our interactive selfies and to limit our fun. Only four PHOTOSPOTS? Is he saying there aren’t enough utilitarian objects to go round?<\/p>\n He even supposes to think big, noting that \u201cFor me the stainless steel is the material of the proletariat, it\u2019s what pots and pans are made of.\u201d I never imagined myself as a proletariat or that pots and pans were so easy to work with. Further on he adds, \u201cIt\u2019s a very hard material and it\u2019s fake luxury.\u201d Indeed, there is a lot of fake luxury in this retrospective. Unaffordable to all but the richest collectors of Pop (or Blow-Up) Art. He ought to have heeded Picasso\u2019s advice: \u201cCopy anyone but don\u2019t copy yourself.\u201d Of course, easier said than done when one has a winning formula for creative commercial success.<\/p>\n My favourite piece is Jenny Holzer\u2019s Installation for Bilbao<\/a> (1999). Her work has always fascinated me, and her magnificent 9-column, running-LED display (up and down in blue and red) mesmerizes as text appears and disappears from floor and ceiling. Words race up and down in a myriad of languages, inviting one to ask where creation comes from. It is monumental like all the others, but accessible all the same.<\/p>\n To be sure, the Guggenheim is impressive, and easily dwarfs other modern art galleries. All the more since we no longer go to church, but to large cathedral-housed galleries to commune with our better selves. The Guggenheim is a shape, \u201ca confluence of juxtaposed shapes\u201d we are told. According to Gehry, \u201cI\u2019ve always thought of the city in sculptural terms. The city is a sculpture itself.\u201d And now, with a modern cathedral where one comes to be a part of a new secular, it\u2019s a shape you walk into like a playground with swings and teeter-totters. The building is<\/em> the show.<\/p>\n If one isn\u2019t into large playground art, there is more on offer in Bilbao. One can happily amble along the gentle beauty of the remodelled Nervi\u00f3n river promenade and let the midday breeze blissfully blow past.<\/p>\n Or check out the pintxos bar in the oldest part of town, wall-to-wall eating in a peaceful pedestrian centre. Just meander through the narrow old cathedral streets, and take in the gastronomic delights on offer at hundreds of different bars. Indeed, Bilbao is home to the pintxo walk (or pincho in Spanish), dreamy hors d\u2019oeuvre washed down with wine or beer, though more like a meal after 5 or 6. One gets lost in time and space in search of the perfect pintxo creation.<\/p>\n Prices vary, so watch out for the enga\u00f1os <\/em>(rip-offs) like Berton, an attractive but ridiculously priced pintxo trap. We had their \u201cmedallones de solomillo y foie\u201d for \u20ac3.50, which alas came with a withered slice of pepper, a miniscule sliver of foie (on the side), a damp cut of bad bread, and only ONE medallion. My Spanish is an ongoing process, but I know my plurals \u2013 medallones<\/em> suggests at least two!<\/p>\n Clearly Bilbao is enjoying its makeover tourist status to reel in the unsuspecting. For a great menu del d\u00eda<\/em> though, after the requisite pilgrimage to the Guggenheim, I recommend the nearby Larruzz Bilbao on the river side. You won\u2019t feel you splurged as you recount the monumental.<\/p>\n Best of the \u201cpinchoter\u00edas\u201d (my first coined Spanish word) was Santamaria, where we had a delicious bacalao<\/em> (cod), melted cheese, and jam creation. Better yet, take a quick trip to Portugalete for even cheaper pintxos (a half hour, \u20ac3.20 return ride on the metro) at the mouth of the Nervi\u00f3n with its World Heritage Site<\/a> Puente Vizcaya, the oldest hanging transporter bridge in the world. If you take the bridge (\u20ac0.70 return) you can check out the beaches of Getxo in the really posh part of town.<\/p>\n Even better (if you\u2019re after good fairly priced pinchos), try Castro Urdiales and its \u201cruta de los pinchos\u201d in nearby Cantabria, that is if you\u2019re flying from Santander. Here, one gets pinchos galore for a euro each in any of a dozen coastal pinchoter\u00edas. Meson Marinero<\/a> was the best of a great bunch. No iconic modern cathedrals to jack up the prices, just simple tranquillity on the edge of a quiet ocean. Of course, pinchos like art is subjective, but I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll love it.<\/p>\n To be sure, everyone is a critic these days, so I have an idea for the Guggenheim if it really wants to offer a new cathedral experience, a modern communion for today\u2019s adherent: the \u201cSelfie Box.\u201d At the outside entrance, one stands on a marked PHOTOSPOT, smiles (or mugs), and the image is instantly transferred to a video wall containing hundreds of other similar selfies. Just think how much fun to see ourselves on gridded display, to be part of the art, to be instantly artized<\/em>.<\/p>\n How could one not ponder one’s place, or the line between artist and viewer, priest and believer? But then we might not care so much about the real professional art on the real professional walls.<\/p>\n Bilbao\u2019s old cathedral is in the heart of its medieval pedestrian centre (Siete Calles or Seven Streets), mostly forgotten today amidst the bonhomie of pintxo bars, but fortunately there\u2019s a new cathedral in town, the Guggenheim, a shiny titanium-clad museum … Continue reading <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"