Just when you think you are getting the hang of rudimentary Spanish, that’s forehead smacking-hand waving communication, you enter Basque Country. Now we have to smack our foreheads and hand wave in two languages because really, I have no clue what either of these groups are saying. Manuel, or whatever his name is, at our hotel speaks so fast that you can’t tell one syllable from the next and I’m assuming here the Spanish or Basque actually have syllables, just quietly, I’m pretty sure they don’t. To make it more interesting, when Manuel realises he is not getting the point across he gets faster, louder and more animated…. then I bring out the big gun “google translator” then its all si si (only with the acute accent, which is no doubt on the keyboard somewhere, Alt+0193 or something).
But as usual I digress. First things first as they say. I now unreservedly withdraw my criticism of both the “stainless steel toilet” and the “potential toolbox” previously mentioned. I now consider them to be first class pieces of art. This change of heart was in no small way related to today’s outing to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. If a few tree prunings and used computer cases hanging from a hastily erected trellis with a dozen Buddha figurines suspended upside down can “make” the Guggenheim then the toilet and toolbox have my vote. I wasn’t going to mention Motherwell’s Iberia but seeing as I’m there now….. it’s a black canvas with a patch of white in left hand lower corner. (that’s the left not the right corner).
The Guggenheim Museum (Architect Frank Gehry) at Bilbao is spectacular and has got to be up there with the Sydney Opera House (Jen says better) and not just because they are both curved and both have tiled exteriors and wait a minute……….. Motherwell was one of Pollocks buddies! Blue Poles, Iberia?, this New York School of Abstract Expressionism is starting to look a bit suspect. I wonder if Utzon and Gehry were buddies?
Anyway the pictures……
By the way something is fishy here because Gehry claims his inspiration for all of his buildings comes from childhood memories of fish.
I love artistic descriptions, I thought the artificial lake on the river side came right up to the building. How wrong could I be? Turns out it actually blurs the boundary of the building and the river by “caressing its foundation” and giving the impression that the building is a boat in the river. Could be!
leschalmers 