Guggenheim

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After waking cold, stiff and hungry we started the long drive to Bilbao. It would appear that Europeans don't adhere to same standard for road signs as we do in the US. If a street sign exists it is usually tucked behind a tree, right at the point of turning without warning or a good ten yards passed the turn so you can clearly see it once you start turning. Needless to say it took us a while to reach Bilbao. After circling the city a couple of times we found our way into the downtown core to stop at the main attraction in Bilbao, the Guggenheim museum. We found street parking in front of the building and proceeded to take a wrong turn and walk completely around the building to find the entrance. The museum designed by Frank Gehry is a work of art with shimmering aluminum panels jutting out at odd angles that would make any Seattleite instantly think of the EMP (experience music project building). Guggenheim museums are primarily modern art exhibits with some permanent contemporary pieces. Or so our trusty guide book says. Rough guide talks about permanent collections of Picasso, Chagall and Warhol. These do not exist at this Guggenheim currently. A good look at the floor plan and museum guide will show you that no collections are or were displayed there. The list of inaccuracies with Rough Guide continues. Since we had already paid the entrance fee we decided to look at the featured modern artists that touted as being "recognized as one of foremost artists of our time". Anselm Kiefer was born in 1945 and although I'm sure he intends his work to be taken seriously, has absolutely hilarious looking stuff. He enjoys creating large canvases of splattered paint then gluing odd, asinine random items to the center. Three of our "favorites" include the spiral of dirty T-shirts, the field of glued twigs with a folding chair stick in the middle and a blue canvas with white splotches we think representing stars and a real stuffed white goose glued to the center. Don't get me wrong. The room full of giant lead books with large pressed sunflowers was also pretty funny. One piece had a series of jars stuck to the wall and one broken one on the floor. A German tourist ran to the attendant about the damage only to be told it was part of the exhibit. Not all of Kiefer's pieces had weird items glued to them. One room had several broken chunks of concrete stairs lying around the room and a couple bolted to the walls. What we found equally funny were the amount of people taking these things seriously and intently listening to the audio-guide on the perceived thought process of the artist when creating this stuff. We are very sorry that no pictures were allowed inside because it is definitely a good laugh. After leaving the museum we headed back to our rental car only to find a €12 parking ticket stuck to the windshield. It appears that two blocks up on the other side of the street there was a sign we missed. Word of advice, blue lines on the curb means paid parking. Unfortunately the ticket was in Spanish without instructions on how or where to pay that we could understand. I guess Karma getting back at us for laughing at the art. We headed out of town in search of gas and the freeway but once again we had trouble with the signs and nearly ran empty. Finally on the road we settled in for the drive to Madrid.

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Photos

Title: Hierarchy of the Angels
Crazy painting with shirts glued to a canvas!! Picture taken from a brochure sorry for the clarity.