MARCIUS GALAN

The point of departure of Art and Space is the collaboration between Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida and German philosopher Martin Heidegger in 1969, which resulted in the publication of an artist book whose title inspired that of this exhibition. By updating and fleshing out concepts and questions embedded in that extraordinary dialogue, this show presents more than 100 works by international artists and offers itself as a reinterpretation of the history of abstraction in the past six decades.

Art and Space also pays tribute to the inexhaustible capacity of Frank Gehry’s building to generate unique dialogues between its breathtaking spaces and fundamental works from the modern and contemporary era. Starting with key works from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection and featuring selections from the Constellation of Guggenheim Museums, along with other loans from major leading collections, this exhibition is a celebration of place and architecture through art. Following Heidegger in Art and Space, the show provides perspectives on the different ways a work of art “takes over the space” and the space “traverses the work of art.” Likewise, it proposes the analysis of this correlation between spaces and volumes by exploring the connections and silent conversations between the works and the forces that structure them—gravity, light, balance—yet also between artistic creation and philosophical thinking, their forms and materials. This historically and geographically complex dialogue clearly extends beyond the Western context to survey multiple artistic disciplines constantly reappearing in contemporary  practices.

Several works from the Collection occupying different locations in the Museum are also included in the exhibition Art and Space, which is mostly presented in the galleries of the second floor. Both the Atrium and one of the terraces feature two large sculptures by Eduardo Chillida: Advice to Space V (1993) and Embrace XI (1996). Also the Atrium and several scattered places of the second floor will house different components of Sergio Prego’s Sequence of Dihedrals (2007), an automated device specifically conceived for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in 2007, accompanied by models and drawings.

Agoramaquia (The Exact Case of the Statue) is presented within Art and Space in two versions. Gallery 201 features “the complete version” of the work, which includes a concrete base and a poster with an essay by Mendizabal on the trials and tribulations of the production of Jorge Oteiza’s last sculpture, whose shapes are evoked by Agoramaquia.

As for Marcius Galan, the Brazilian artist Marcius Galan intervenes directly in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the gallery by means of tints and plays on light that create the illusion of a glass panel that bisects the space diagonally.