Although temporarily closed to visitors in order to contain the spread of COVID-19, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao launches  #GuggenheimBilbaoLive, a digital initiative which will continuously offer through the Museum’s website and social media new audiovisual content about the exhibitions and other, more unknown aspects of its operations.

Created to accompany, inspire, and help make confinement a bit more manageable, the new section of the website titled #GuggenheimBilbaoLive will be offering a number of videos created behind closed doors in the past few days by some members of the Museum staff. The new virtual content will feature the Director General, the curators, and other people working in key areas, such as conservation, education and interpretation, exhibition design and installation, or facilities, and they will unveil their hands-on experience and views along the next days and weeks, over this closure period.

Thus, in these challenging times of confinement, they will share in a casual, personal way, e.g., which is their favorite work of art from the Collection, or anecdotes and trivia about the current exhibitions, and will answer questions any visitor may pose: how were Richard Serra’s colossal sculptures in The Matter of Time shipped and installed? How is an exhibition organized? What kind of maintenance does the building require? How are works of art preserved? What’s it like to design an exhibition installation? How do works of art travel? What are the kids’ favorite pieces?

At the launch of the project, videos connected to the exhibition Olafur Eliasson: In real life, sponsored by Iberdrola, have been published first in the section entitled “Exhibitions and Collection.” In them, curator Lucía Agirre shares some details of the show and her favorite works created by this artist who makes us reflect about the world around us and uses materials such as moss, water, glacial water, fog, light, or reflecting metal. The pieces entitled Moss wall, Stardust particle, and The glacier melt series 1999/2019 are some of the artwork she has chosen.

In the next few days, more videos will be uploaded until all sections are complete:

• Exhibitions and Collection,where new videos will be added concerning the art of the exhibitions currently not on view.
• Museum andFamilies: an approach to art with the family, with videos created to stimulate the kids’ creativity and interest in art. This section for families is sponsored by BBK.
• Challenging Installations:aspects of exhibitions that visitors do not normally see from the professionals’
• A Bright Shiny Building:keeping ready the Frank Gehry-designed building, from the engine room to other key, unknown places.
• How to Preserve the Art:artwork conservation, one of the Museum’s main tasks.
• Our Most Memorable Shows: some of the Museum’s most successful exhibitions “retrieved.”