- Dates: from February 3 to June 4, 2017
- Exhibition organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, with the collaboration of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
- Curators: David Anfam, Edith Devaney, and Lucía Agirre
- Sponsored by Fundación BBVA
- Unlike the other key 20th–century artistic movements, Cubism and Surrealism, which predated it, Abstract Expressionism refuses to be bound by any formula and is instead a celebration of individual diversity and freedom.
- Mostly colossal canvasses, some of these works are intense, expressive, and spontaneous, while others are contemplative, yet they all redefined the nature of painting.
- In Jackson Pollock’s words, “Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you.” The artists express their emotions and convey their presence through the works, but the observer’s perception is what brings them full circle.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Abstract Expressionism, an ambitious selection of works by the artists who spearheaded a major shift and new apogee in painting in New York which began in the 1940’s. Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, David Smith, and Clyfford Still are just some of the artists in the show, which brings together more than 130 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs from public and private collections all over the world. This exhibition sheds new light on Abstract Expressionism, a diverse, complex, and multifaceted phenomenon which is often erroneously viewed as a unified whole. The presentation in Bilbao has been made possible thanks to the generous sponsorship of Fundación BBVA, and with support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.