Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Its Art Initiatives
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is set to host the highly anticipated exhibition, "Motion: Autos, Art, Architecture," from April 8 to September 18, 2022. This unique event brings together around forty automobiles, each considered the best of its kind in terms of beauty, rarity, technical progress, and a vision of the future.
The exhibition is organized by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Norman Foster Foundation, with a focus on the interdisciplinary relationship among automobiles, visual art, and architectural design. Each gallery addresses a particular historical moment or theme in which the intersection of industrial design, art, and architecture is visible.
The "Beginnings" gallery traces the birth of the automobile from the customized horseless carriage through to its mass-production, using new technologies of photography and film. It showcases an example of the Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, a car created by Jean Bugatti and linked to a family immersed in the world of art and architecture over several generations. The gallery also includes the sculpture "Walking Panther" by the uncle of Jean Bugatti, artist Rembrandt Bugatti, each redolent of motion.
The "Visionaries" section celebrates a diverse range of visionary vehicles and their designers, showcasing fluid forms and aerodynamic achievements. It includes depictions of driverless cars, a science fiction vision that is close to the reality of today. The section features visual affinities between futurist paintings and one-off concept cars, such as three examples from General Motors. Works from the Futurist Movement, like Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913), are also on display.
The "Sporting" gallery showcases five examples of fast sports cars from the post-war economic boom years, each a delight to behold and merging art and fashion to satisfy the fantasy of speed and adventure.
The "Americana" section explores the impact of the automobile on the United States, shaping its economy, landscape, popular culture, and urban spaces. It includes views of the camera lens of Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, O. Winston Link, as well as the paintings of Ed Ruscha and Robert Indiana.
The "Model cars" section showcases the cultural significance of the automobile extending beyond the vehicles themselves to encompass the world of models and toys.
The "For Future" gallery showcases the work of a younger generation of students from sixteen schools of design and architecture on four continents, who were invited to imagine what mobility might be at the end of the century. This section coincides with the 200th Anniversary of the birth of the automobile.
The "Clay Modelling Studio" section features a working replica of the clay modelling studio, showcasing the LYRIQ EV, a process pioneered during the 1930's by Harley Earl, the legendary Chief of Design of General Motors.
The exhibition also considers the affinities between technology and art, showing how the use of the wind tunnel helped to aerodynamically shape the automobile to go faster with more economic use of power.
To enhance the visitor's experience, the exhibition brings together collaborators such as AIC-Automotive Intelligence Center, Cadillac in Clay Modelling Studio, and Sennheiser in the immersive sound experience. Floyd Norman and Nick Norman were involved in creating the soundscape element, contributing to the immersive "sound of motion" experience.
While the exact sponsors for the 2022 exhibition at Guggenheim Bilbao are not explicitly identified in the available sources, given the museum's prominence and past partnerships, it is plausible that similar cultural or corporate partners might have been involved. However, this is not confirmed in the available information.
- The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, in collaboration with the Norman Foster Foundation, is hosting the exhibition "Motion: Autos, Art, Architecture," spotlighting the interdisciplinary relationship among automobiles, visual art, and architectural design from April 8 to September 18, 2022.
- The "Beginnings" gallery of the exhibition traces the inception of the automobile, incorporating new technologies of photography and film to illustrate the evolution from customized horseless carriages to mass-produced vehicles, such as the Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic.
- The "Visionaries" segment celebrates futuristic vehicles and their designers, highlighting fluid forms and aerodynamic achievements, like depictions of driverless cars that bridge the gap between science fiction and reality.
- The "Sporting" gallery features five fast sports cars from post-war economic boom years, each blending art, fashion, and the allure of speed and adventure.
- The "For Future" section showcases designs by a younger generation of students from international schools of design and architecture regarding the potential evolution of mobility at the end of the century, coinciding with the 200th Anniversary of the birth of the automobile.
