Richard Serra Excites Me So!

Getting off all things Gehry (yo, I would never even get on that), let's talk about the BEST part of the Guggenheim--the Richard Serra room!  Seen below, it's called "The Matter of Time."

I knew of Serra well enough (my fine hometown is home to two of his pieces; see me wander through "Joe" here), and my first thought on seeing the pieces in this enclosed environment was, "Boo!  They should be outside where they can weather appropriately."

My second thought was something like, "Hey jerk, could you move your ill-placed baby vehicle so others may enter the sculpture?!"  Yeah, some ass-mom left her child blocking the entrance while she was nowhere to be seen.  Hurumph.  This woman clearly was not up on her sculptural etiquette.

But back to my first thought about the sculptures being better served out of doors.  Well, tally that point for the Guggenheim because having the pieces in a controlled environment allows you to experience the acoustic changes in a way impossible outside.  There were moments I was damn-near playing foot piano, listening to the way the sounds changed.  (Touché, Guggers.  Touché.)

Which leads me to "All of The Ways to Experience a Serra" (or, "How I Almost Lost My Proverbial Shit Inside a Serra Sculpture").

Look, it may have been the glass of wine I had at lunch or it may have been that I was wearing my glasses that day (this sometimes trips out my peripheral vision ever so slightly), but when R.Serra started tipping the snaking metal toward me and I felt off-kilter and the sound of my footsteps was changing and I started to feel space tightening around me and my feet fumbled a bit but I kept leaning, leaning, leaning into it, trusting it was going to open up and free me, listening to the sounds continue to change, looking at the crusty metal patina, walking walking, thinking how much longer can this go on the thing didn't look that big?, when it opens... and I've reached the middle... and I can breathe and smile and want to start clapping and squealing like a baby child.

You got me, Mr. Serra!  Your big metal thingy that looks like nothing from the outside, it ingested me, squeezed me tight, tripped me up, and released me to stand there and wonder what the hell just happened.  There were times when I felt like I was either going to cry or vomit or have some kind of extreme physiological response (I bring your attention back to the glass of wine from lunch), but I assure you this is GOOD.  I am trying to tell you that I enjoyed this experience because it was a giant freaking EXPERIENCE brought on by A-R-T.

After I realized what a trip I had been on, I grabbed my sense of wonder by the arm and took the rest of them with such a curiosity.  All of my senses were firing.  (OK, except taste.  Shoot, I should have licked it!)  I didn't want to miss one damn thing that Serra was putting out there.  Snake me around, buddy!  Let's see where you take me!

I have not had such a visceral and emotional and multi-sensory experience to art in ages.  (Though, I think often of the hours I wasted on the Cremaster cycle and this always incites an urge to vomit, but that's different.  Hey Barney, I want my money back!  No, even better, I want those HOURS back.  You insult us to assume that anyone has time to spare on your schlock.  *End digression.*)  I loved experiencing these sculptures more than I can tell you, and I am fairly certain that Richard Serra is a genius.

Now if only they would have let him build the damn museum.

Bilbao

Day 1 of foul-weather excursions took us to Bilbao, the largest city on the Spanish side of the Basque region and the largest city overall in Basque country.  Bilbao's been described as the "Pittsburgh of Spain," and though I haven't spent much time in Pittsburgh, I'm guessing this is fairly accurate.  The town is pretty ho-hum.  Not so pretty, not so exciting, and it was a Saturday and most downtown shops were deadsville.  Snore.

What Bilbao does have is a Guggenheim Museum.  Yeah, the Frank Gehry one.  You can see it looming at the end of the street here.

But before I get into the Gehry building, let's talk about something happy:  Jeff Koons' "Puppy"!

Spring was good to Puppy, as he was in full bloom.  He looks out at Bilbao, welcoming visitors to the monstrosity of a museum.

Oops.  Here I go.

I have been the opposite of a fan of Frank Gehry since watching the documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry some years ago.  His paper crumpling techniques did not inspire respect from me.  I was more impressed by the skill it took for the people in his office to translate his childish renderings into something that could actually be made, ugly as it may be.  I will give all the props in the world to the people crunching the numbers and running the programs to enable something like this to be built.  But I have few good words to say about the aesthetics of the building itself.

For me, it is a confused jumble.  There were parts I liked (like the glass walls, reflecting back on themselves and the landscape outside), but generally the whole thing felt really haphazard and incoherent.  The sandy granite tiles in atrium were more reminiscent of an office building in suburban St. Louis.  And then there were curvy white drywalled areas.  And the glass walls.  And stairways that were hard to find and didn't take you where you wanted to go.  I don't know, I just didn't like it.  It wasn't warm.  It wasn't interesting.  It was confusing and felt thrown together.  I don't know how so many damn critics can be in its thrall.

Back to happier things, here's Jeff Koons' "Tulip."

Looking out from the back terrace.

Another view from the back terrace.  

As for the contents of the museum, the collection of Serra sculptures is bar none.  (More on that later.)  And there was an exhibit of David Hockney's landscapes that I enjoyed more than I would have thought.  The exhibit included some of Hockney's iPad landscapes, and it's pretty impressive what the ol' boy can do on the new technology.  Google it to see more.  

I'll leave you with this shot of a dog waiting for his owner to finish her gelato with the Guggenheim in the background.