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i've been in the guggenheim and as an artist, i agree with other artists' criticism of the ramp. the building is cool, the story in the link here is interesting, but wright fucked up on function, once again.
 
originally posted by Joel Stewart:
i've been in the guggenheim and as an artist, i agree with other artists' criticism of the ramp. the building is cool, the story in the link here is interesting, but wright fucked up on function, once again.
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The criticism I heard about the Guggenheim is that the building is so grand that it can overwhelm the art. Is that your general issue with it? Or are there are aspects of the building that detract from its function as a gallery? Bad lighting?
 
Wright designed the Guggenheim, famously, so that the architecture virtually obstructed the art. In its original design, it was hard, if not impossible, to get the artwork under natural light. I think revisions fixed that. Still the ramps and other aspects put one, as Otto says, at unusual angles to the artworks at times.
 
The Bilbao Guggenheim is, I think, a vastly preferable space in which to present art (and an infinitely better building, but that's another issue). That said, the upcoming exhibition (when we were there a little over a week ago, the entire second floor was closed) is the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. I'm kinda hoping they'll make everyone stand on angled floors to view the exhibit. Maybe a spiral treadmill?
 
originally posted by Thor:
The Bilbao Guggenheim is, I think, a vastly preferable space in which to present art (and an infinitely better building, but that's another issue). That said, the upcoming exhibition (when we were there a little over a week ago, the entire second floor was closed) is the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. I'm kinda hoping they'll make everyone stand on angled floors to view the exhibit. Maybe a spiral treadmill?
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I certainly agree with your assessment. We went to Guggenheim Bilbao expecting to love the building and be unmoved by the artwork within (too much negative experience with Guggenheim NY). We did indeed love Gehry's structure, but were equally taken with their selection of artworks, which typically melded architectural themes with fine art. Richard Serra's stuff was quite remarkable to experience in person, but the highlight was a room designed by an artist unknown to us that utilized the Ganzfeld effect. Wow. It even beat out another artwork, a makeshift corridor lit by an eerie green light that made Jean physically ill to walk through.

Mark Lipton
 
Little of that on our trip. The Serra room was fascinating, for sure, but with an entire exhibition floor out of commission, there honestly wasn't all that much art to experience aside from the films on the first floor. I was kinda mesmerized by the Zidane multi-camera movie, with a rather incredible and counter-intuitive use of sound, but actually the least interesting rooms in the museum for me were the "permanent collection" rooms of flat art. I'm not noted for my love of visual art produced before some awfully large number of years ago, and so approached the museum with some trepidation, but that was still surprising to me.

The building, though...man, I love that building. And I might love Calatrava's bridge even more. We were staying a few feet from it, so used it every time we needed to cross the river.
 
The best thing about the Guggenheim Bilbao is the restaurant. The veal cheeks are outta sight. The custom-label rioja is pretty good, too.
 
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