1 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Annual Report 2017 Introduction 4 Art Program 6 Acquisitions 26 Education and Interpretation 28 Visitors 40 Individual Members 41 Corporate Members 43 Press 46 Store/Bookstore 49 Publications 50 Management Model 52 Economic Impact 53 20th Anniversary 54 Prizes and Awards 59 VIPs 60 Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Foundation 63 CONTENTS 4 5 Art and Space; or the works of Pierre Huyghe, Ken Jacobs and Amie Siegel, which occupied the Film & Video space. In this year’s assessment, three of these exhibitions appear in The Art Newspaper’s rankings as being among the five most visited in the Contemporary Art category, and four appear among the top twenty art shows in the world. This year has also seen the rollout of the initiatives conveyed by the Strategic Plan 2015–2017, some of which were directed at establishing ties with the Museum’s close surroundings and strengthening its ties with society. Doing so included the launching of Community, a community of art and culture lovers and a new space that the Museum is opening up to the world, encompassing both Corporate and Individual Member Programs, as well as our Followers. This solid corporate and social support reinforces the Museum’s involvement with citizens, and through the new Followers, significantly extends its scope of influence. Moreover, Community’s numbers at the end of the year surpassed 27,000 people. With respect to its 20th Anniversary, the artistic component of the celebration defined initiatives such as Eginberri, which was a presentation of young Basque artists in the Museum’s exhibition galleries, or the Conservation Plan, through which the technological components of fourteen works in the Collection were updated or replaced. Among the programs directed at local cultural agents, one worthy of note is TopARTE, in which the Museum offered its spaces to local institutions for programs in different disciplines, such as cinema, theater, dance, music, and other artistic expressions, thus combining these with the offering of activities that the Museum organizes throughout the year. With respect to the more social component of the celebration alongside members of the community, Reflections was a spectacular event that converted the building’s titanium surface into a canvas for the projection of moving images that we were able to share with more than 300,000 people. In 2017, the Museum received multiple prizes that are mentioned later on in this report, such as the European Cultural Brand 2017. Nonetheless, two of these awards have a singular importance: its third consecutive mention as the “Most transparent museum in Spain” by Fundación Compromiso y Transparencia, and as a special touch on top of this eminently special year, its appointment as Ambassador of the City of Bilbao “due to being a cultural and economic icon of the transformation and future of Bilbao in the entire world,” an award granted by the City Council of Bilbao, and which is particularly meaningful for The past 2017 was a very special year for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, not only because it reached record numbers, an institution that was created, among other goals, precisely to project a new image of the city and the region to the world. but also because we celebrated our 20th Anniversary. It was a chance to look back and take stock of everything that we have achieved over these past twenty years, as well as to celebrate having made it to this point with a prominent international Now is the time to look to the future with the conviction that the Museum will maintain, over the coming decades, its role position and results that few people could have imagined at the end of the 1990s, when the Museum was founded, dazzling as a model cultural and artistic institution. We hope that the following generations continue to enjoy our offering and to both locals and foreigners. It is also a time for contemplating the future with renewed strength and the desire to continue consider the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao a broadly-encompassing celebration of art and culture along a pathway of innovation and progress. Juan Ignacio Vidarte 2017 was the best year in the Museum’s history in terms of its audience, with 1,322,611 visitors, who were drawn by their Director General interest in our Art Program carefully-designed to seduce an international public. Bill Viola: A Retrospective was viewed by Guggenheim Museum Bilbao 710,995 people, with an average daily number of visits that has only been surpassed by the historic 1998 exhibition China: 5,000 Years. The other half a million people also enjoyed Paris, Fin de Siècle: Signac, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Their Contemporaries and Georg Baselitz. The Heroes. Other important shows, in terms of the number of visitors, included the extraordinary selection of Abstract Expressionism, which won the Global Fine Arts Award in 2018; the work of Fiber artist Anni Albers; a compendium of works by Pello Irazu; David Hockney’s recent portrait productions; the relationship between INTRODUCTION 6 7 TOP: Anselm Kiefer, The Land of the Two Rivers (Zweistromland), 1995. Emulsion, acrylic, lead, salt through electrolysis and zinc plates-condenser, on canvas, and The Renowned Orders of the Night (Die berühmten Orden der Nacht), 1997. Acrylic and emulsion on canvas. Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa. BELOW: View of gallery 303 with works by Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. OPP. PAGE, TOP: Robert Motherwell, Phoenician Red Studio, 1977. Acrylic and charcoal on canvas. Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa. OPP. PAGE, BOTTOM: Gallery 304 with works by Yves Klein, Willem de Kooning, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Antoni Tàpies., THE FOUNDATIONS OF TODAY’S ART Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Collection Opened on November 27, 2015 Galleries 302, 303, and 304 CURATED BY Lucía Agirre NO. OF WORKS: 19 ONGOING ART PROGRAM 8 ART PROGRAM 9 Vista de una de las salas de la exposición dedicada a Jean-Michel Basquiat; a la izquierda, El ring (The Ring, 1981) Paul Signac, Saint-Tropez, Fontaine des Lices, 1895. Oil on canvas. Private collection THE FOUNDATIONS OF TODAY’S ART OPP. PAGE, TOP: View of gallery 305 with the following works: Claude Monet, Water Water Lilies (Nymphéas), 1914. Oil on canvas. Private collection; Théo van Rysselberghe, Kalf’s Mill in Knokke (Windmill in Paris, Fin de Siècle: Signac, Redon, Toulouse-Lautrec, Flanders) (Le Moulin du Kalf à Knokke ou Moulin en Flandre), 1894. Oil on and Their Contemporaries canvas. Private collection; and Théo van Rysselberghe, Canal in Flanders, May 12–September 17, 2017 Gloomy Weather (Le canal en Flandre par temps triste), 1894. Oil on Galleries 305, 306, and 307 canvas. Private collection. OPP. PAGE, BOTTOM LEFT: Panoramic view of gallery 306. OPP. PAGE, BOTTOM CENTER: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane CURATED BY: Vivien Greene Avril, 1899. Color lithograph. Private collection. OPP. PAGE, BOTTOM RIGHT: NO. OF WORKS: 125 Paul Signac, Sunday in Paris (Le dimanche parisien), 1887. Lithograph. NO. OF VISITORS: 569,673 Private collection 10 ART PROGRAM 11 Different views of galleries 305, 306, and 307, with works by Anni Albers. OPP. PAGE, BOTTOM RIGHT: One of the necklaces designed by the artist with unusual materials, in this case a metal chain, a drainpipe filter, and clips. The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Bethany, Connecticut THE FOUNDATIONS OF TODAY’S ART Anni Albers: Touching Vision October 6, 2017–January 14, 2018 Galleries 305, 306, and 307 CURATED BY Manuel Cirauqui NO. OF WORKS: 70 NO. OF VISITORS [as of December 31, 2017]: 358,501 12 ART PROGRAM 13 Works by Clyfford Still: PH-1123, 1954. Oil on canvas; PH-150, 1959. Oil on canvas; PH-1140, 1957. Oil on canvas. All property of the Clyfford Still Museum, Denver. Donation from the Clyfford E. Still Estate to the County and City Council of Denver. TEMPORARY EXHIBITION OPP. PAGE, TOP: Works by Mark Rothko; from left to right: No. 1 (White and Red), 1962. Oil on canvas, 259.1 x 228.6 cm. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. Donation from the Abstract Expressionism Women’s Committee Fund, 1962; Yellow Band, 1956. Oil on canvas, 218.8 x 201.9 cm. February 3–June 4, 2017 Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Sheldon Art Association, Second floor galleries Thomas C. Woods Memorial, N-130. 1961; Untitled, 1952–53. Oil on canvas, 299.5 x 442.5 cm. Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa; No. 4 (Untitled), 1953. Oil on canvas, 268.4 CURATED BY David Anfam, Edith Devaney, x 128.9 cm. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Donation of The Mark and Lucía Agirre Rothko Foundation, Inc., 85.43.2. Untitled, 1960. Mixed media on canvas, 236.2 x 206.4 NO. OF WORKS: 130 cm. Loan from the Toledo Museum of Art. Acquired with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Donation of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1970.55. BELOW: Lee Krasner, NO. OF VISITORS: 356,641 The Eye is the First Circle, 1960. Oil on canvas, 235.5 x 483.3 cm. Private collection, courtesy of the Robert Miller Gallery, New York; David Smith, The Hero, 1951–52. Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in Forged and soldered steel with red lead paint, 187.2 x 64.8 x 29.8 cm. Brooklyn Museum, collaboration with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao New York. Dick S. Ramsay Fund, 57.185; and Robert Motherwell, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 126, 1965–75. Acrylic on canvas, 197.5 x 508.6 cm. The University of Iowa Sponsored by Museum of Art. 14 ART PROGRAM 15 TEMPORARY EXHIBITION Bill Viola: A Retrospective Sponsored by June 30–November 9, 2017 Second floor galleries CURATED BY Lucía Agirre OPPOSITE: Bill Viola, Fire Woman, 2005.