Daniel Buren. Arcos rojos, 2007
© FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, 2007
Photo: Erika Barahona-Ede
 

October 19, 2007 marked the 10 year anniversary of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. To celebrate the occasion, the Museum presented The Red Arches, by Daniel Buren, an art intervention on La Salve Bridge that enhanced the city’s art heritage and provides a new work
for the Museum Collection, conceived specifically for one of the most remarkable areas in the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao's building’s immediate surroundings.

Daniel Buren. Arcos rojos, 2007
© FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, 2007
Photo: Erika Barahona-Ede

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was built on a triangular site, with La Salve Bridge, carrying one of the city’s major access roads, cutting through one vertex of the triangle. When architect Frank Gehry began work on the design for the museum building, he decided from the beginning to include the bridge. A colossal arm-like edifice slips under the bridge and ends in a stone tower that rises on the other side of the bridge in an extraordinary embrace.

CHOOSING THE PROJECT

The new project is also set to become a permanent part of La Salve Bridge thanks to an agreement with the bridge’s owner, the Vizcaya Provincial Council. In June 2006, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao invited several internationally acclaimed contemporary artists, including Daniel Buren, Liam Gillick, and Jenny Holzer, to present their proposals for an artwork that would permanently transform the bridge. All the invited artists had considerable experience in working on a monumental scale and were renowned for their highly personal creative idioms and materials. Finally, Buren, Gillick, and Holzer decided to present proposals.

A project Selection Committee, including representatives from the Basque Government, the Vizcaya Provincial Council, Norman Rosenthal, Exhibitions Secretary at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao Director General Juan Ignacio Vidarte, announced its final decision on December 19, 2006. But the committee members were not the only ones to have a say in choosing the art intervention for La Salve Bridge. Management at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao felt that, given the sheer size and scope of the project, its visual and popular impact, and its integration into
the city’s architectural profile, everyone visiting the museum should have a chance to take part in the selection process. Over a two-month period, visitors to the Museum were asked to vote for their favorite proposal. Models of the three projects were on show at the museum from early October to late November 2006, together with a range of support materials provided by each artist, to explain to visitors
their conception of the project and giving a brief overview of their careers to date. The majority opinion of museum visitors counted as an extra vote on the selection committee, which finally chose the project submitted by French artist Daniel Buren, defining his
creation as a “visually captivating work, simple and impeccable.” The committee felt that The Red Arches strived successfully to soften the powerful contrast between the bridge’s original Hlike arch and the elegantly curving lines of the museum building.

THE RED ARCHES, BY DANIEL BUREN
The Red Arches is the official title of the new site-specific artwork by Daniel Buren. It is based on the artist’s belief that the only element that distorts the perfect harmony created by Frank Gehry between the museum and the bridge is the latter’s iron arch, which, according to the artist, “has no visual connection with the elegance of the museum.” This is why he has concentrated on transforming the arch’s structure, covering it with a colored “skin”, as a sort of sculpture, modifying its form and shape without affecting its original function in
any way. As Buren himself says, “the change opens a dialogue between the functional nature of the bridge and the aesthetics of the sculpture that embraces it.” The bright red Buren has chosen for the panels covering the arch is in sharp contrast to the green of the structure, and strikes up a chromatic connection with Gehry’s building. Black and white stripes, the artist’s trademark, have been fitted to the laterals, to contrast with the red panels. Buren’s project first had to be OK’d by engineers and specialists in this type of structure. The French artist’s design took account of the bridge’s movement and the strength of the wind, which required some very detailed calculations.

The most striking thing about the installation is that the covering isn’t actually anchored to the bridge, which provides support at a few select points. No holes or anchoring devices have been added, as one of the conditions for the project was that the structure of the bridge should remain completely untouched. To begin with, Buren proposed a synthetic material similar to the one used to make large tents or marquees, but for maintenance and conservation reasons, an almost indestructible type of Formica with a ten-year guarantee was chosen. Basically the Formica consists of sheets of paper stuck together and pressed to achieve panels of the required thickness that look rigid and are proof against the cold and heat. Besides being resistant, the material is durable and easy to maintain, making it ideal for this particular piece. Metal boxes containing light-emitting diodes have been fitted to the laterals and covered by translucent methacrylate plates with black adhesive vinyl stripes. Besides the static lighting projected onto both sides of the “red sculpture”, another more complex and dynamic lighting system fitted inside the laterals generates an effect of constant movement up and down the structure’s inner and outer edges. The river reflects the lighting to create a highly suggestive, almost magical effect.

Buren was happy to leave interpretation of the work to the spectator. “The bridge is clearly one of the main entrances to the city,” he says. “You see the museum as soon as you come onto the bridge, and I liked the idea of the viaduct structure being covered with a deep red arch, through which vehicles and pedestrians would have to pass to get in and out of Bilbao. As if it were a huge open door connecting the city with the rest of the world.”

The Red Arches on La Salve Bridge is the latest phase in the spectacular transformation of the old industrial cityscape, a metamorphosis that began to take shape exactly ten years ago.

On View Now

Egon Schiele

October 2, 2012–January 6, 2013

Exploring the themes present in Egon Schiele’s work—landscapes, flowers, children, nudes, portraits, and self-portraits—this exhibition surveys the creative oeuvre of the great Austrian Expressionist, a significant figure of early 20th-century art who died prematurely when he was only 28.

Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao Collection

The Guggenheim Bilbao’s collection spans from the mid-20th century to the present day, concentrating on postwar painting and sculpture in America and Europe. The collection includes key works by significant artists including Anselm Kiefer, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and Richard Serra, whose work The Matter of Time was created to be a permanent installation in Bilbao’s largest gallery.