Juan Ignacio Vidarte
DIRECTOR GENERAL AT GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM BILBAO
We speak with the head of Guggenheim Museum Bilbao on the institution’s twenty-fifth anniversary. A success story that has brought art’s transformational value to the forefront and has placed the Basque Country in the first division in terms of the great cultural attractions of the planet.
Not even the most extreme piece by Raoul Hausmann, a Dadaist artist and the inventor of photomontage, would have been able to achieve a more chimerical panorama:a spectacular titanium structure on a plot crossed by the La Salve Bridge of Bilbao and guarded by a dog made of natural flowers. One hundred years ago, Hausmann coined the concept of visual anarchy (Visuelle Anarchie), and that is the category that the curved and unreal volumes of this building, which spans 24,000 square meters, could occupy. Nevertheless, this visual anarchy is nothing more than an illusion, a trompe l’oeil that, in reality, represents an architectural milestone and a story of urban reconversion that is unlike any other in the world.
That milestone is the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and, in October of 2022, it will turn 25 years old. It is impossible to ignore an anniversary that symbolizes the umpteenth resurrection of Bilbao. It also represents the breaking down of the boundaries between the highest cultural level and the general public.the pillars that support this miracle, which has been imitated time and time again, are work, work, and work.and at the forefront of this titanic task is Juan Ignaciovidarte (Bilbao, 1956), Director General at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. He holds a degree in Economics and Business Sciences from the University of Deusto and has been linked to the institution for a long time, since its inception.“my relationship with the museum goes back beyond its 25 years, as I was present in the first conversations about the project. I look back upon this time with the satisfaction of being able to see how an idea on paper has been transformed into a reality that has gradually fulfilled its objectives,” he explains to BASQUE LUXURY.
It is incredible to think that a few old plots of land abandoned by factories and the port today host one of the most famous branches of the prestigious Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, surely the greatest leader in contemporary art as far as museums are concerned.“the museum in Bilbao is a cultural institution that is deeply rooted in its context. Besides being a cultural leader, I think it is –in a way– an icon of the Basque Country in the world,”vidarte points out.