Bilbao is a port city in northern Spain and is in Basque country. It developed as a heavily industrialized city but is reinventing itself to a service economy. The city was heavily damaged in the Spanish Civil War and Francoist dictatorship.

Looking down from one of the highest points in the city. It was a gray and cloudy day, with fog in abundance.

It’s a fingerprint by the Spanish Sculptor Juanjo Novella. It is a memorial to the Spanish Civil War.

Bottom center is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of contemporary and modern art. The unique building opened in 1997 in a formerly decrepit port area and quickly became a top attraction. It is one of several museums affiliated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which includes the Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. 

Note: The beautiful museum building and its art exhibits made this one of the best excursions of the cruise. We were in Bilbao over 1 1/2 years ago, but the museum was closed. This was a Bucket List item for me. The images below are a tiny piece of the museum. To have the best impact of the art, click the link at the bottom of this post to see the full-size images.

Soft Shuttlecock, 1995, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

A photograph.

Looking down at the central atrium.

Cloth ships

If modern art can have a classic, this is one. Ruth bought the teeshirt.

Orange Disaster #5, 1963, Andy Warhol. Warhol appropriated the electric chair image from a press photograph dated January 13,1953. It was taken inside a death chamber at Sing Sing Prison in New York, where that same year, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for leaking classified information surrounding the atomic bomb to Russia during World War II.

I particularly like these three.

Daddy, Daddy, 2008, Maurizio Cattelan. A life-size sculpture of Pinocchio can be seen lying face down in a body of water, dead. The puppet, who was created for the 1940 film, sacrifices his life in order to save a human being and is later rewarded with a resurrection into a real boy.

Meanwhile, outside the museum.

Even the bridges are art

Maman, Louise Bourgeois,1999.

Obligatory scenic

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Bilbao, Spain
06/27/24