The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, since its inception in 1937, has been the preeminent institution for the collection, preservation and research of modern and contemporary art. Its international network of renowned art museums has given art lovers an insight into early modern masterpieces like no other museums. It originally started with the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York joining forces with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, which in 1997 expanded to include the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin and the Guggenheim Bilbao. The world is now eagerly awaiting the opening of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi planned to open in 2013, which promises an experience unlike any other before it. That is not where it ends however, as only recently the Guggenheim Foundation announced it is seriously considering the possibility of a Guggenheim in Finland’s capital, Helsinki. Art lovers all over the globe are excited at the prospect and are already quietly debating who may be the lucky architect to be commissioned to design it.
Guggenheim Deutschland
Situated at the historical venue ‘Unter den Linden’ in the old and new centre of Berlin the exhibition hall Deutsche Guggenheim opened its doors to the public almost 14 years ago. Within a brief time this state-of-the-art museum established itself through crème de la crème exhibitions for all art lovers and has attained a solid repute for its devotion to modern and contemporary art. Deutsche Guggenheim has numerous exhibitions annually and moreover displays newly commissioned efforts created exclusively by celebrated artists. Past exhibitions have ranged from the most ultra-modern of modern artists to Cézanne, Picasso, and Andy Warhol. A recent exhibition showed Agathe Snow’s All Access World. Her vision was to take as its subject the world’s key landmarks, sights, monuments and historical places and portray the manner in which those shape the collective memories of people by serving as benchmarks of national identity. Snow’s inspiration came during a her time touring landmarks around the world which she undertook as research for All Access World, Snow began to perceive her subjects as overstated sculptural substances composed of returning geometric forms such as domes, towers, spirals, pyramids, and columns. National treasures and ancient wonders such as Stonehenge, rock temples in Abu Simbel, the Coliseum, and the Eiffel Tower are merged with contemporary icons such as the iconic Hollywood sign in LA, the International Space Station, and the New York City skyline to create surreal mixtures.
New York
The Solomon R. Guggenheim, often simply called Guggenheim, is located on 5th Avenue on the eastern edge of Central Park in New York City and forms part of the city’s designated museum mile. Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most celebrated architects globally, created a classic, timeless building when he completed the works on the Guggenheim building in 1959. Permanent shows of amongst others 19th and 20th century art, including heavyweights by French impressionists, Kandinsky, Picasso, and Klee, inhabit an annex called the Tower Galleries. The museum’s spiralling rotund simply loops over a gradually inclining ramp that leads visitors past changing exhibits. Eminent Korean artist Lee U-fan, is to hold a retrospective show titled Lee U-fan: Making Infinity from June 24 to September 28. The Guggenheim introduces the artist as a celebrated sculptor, painter and writer active in Korea, Japan and Europe. The exhibition shows Lee as a historical figure and contemporary artist with the artist’s creation of a visual, conceptual, and theoretical language vision having radically expanded the possibilities for post-minimalist art. The exhibition will feature some 90 works from the 1960s to the present including a new site-specific installation. Lee is only the second Korean artist to ever hold an exhibition at one of the world’s most prominent museums. Video artist Paik Nam-June was the first one a decade earlier back in 2000.
Venice
Surrounded by the romance of the city the 18th century Palazzo Venier dei Leoni is based directly on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It houses the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which contains mainly her personal art gathering. Peggy Guggenheim, the niece of mining tycoon Solomon R. Guggenheim and former wife of Max Ernst, was during her life a renowned art collector. The palace which was designed by Venetian architect Lorenzo Boschetti was purchased by Peggy Guggenheim in 1949 and was her home in Venice for 30 years until her death in 1979. She was moreover responsible for the assemble of paintings and sculptures by other artists, which exhibits pieces with particular strengths in cubism, European abstraction, surrealism, and abstract expressionism from around 1910 onwards. Housing one of the most wide ranging and essential collections of modern art on the globe, the Venice Guggenheim is also one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection here is candy for the eyes with major works including the likes of Kandinsky’s Landscape with Church (with Red Spot), Pollock’s Alchemy, Magritte’s Empire of Light and Picasso’s La Baignade. There are several works by Gorky, Duchamp, Miró, Chagall, Braque, Dalí, Léger and Mondrian.
Bilbao
Built alongside the Nervion River the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is the largest attraction in the city of Bilbao and houses a striking collection of modern and contemporary art. The colossal 50-metre-high building formed part of a $1.5bn redevelopment plan for the city and was designed by internationally renowned Frank Gehry. The building which was almost instantly hailed as one of the most significant structures of its time stretches under the Puente de la Salvé and incorporates it into its design. The Guggenheim Bilbao with its ninety or so yearly exhibitions and over ten million visitors, has forever changed the way civilisation thinks about museums, and it continues to challenge our suppositions about relations between art, architecture, and exhibition spaces. Permanent works feature Robert Motherwell, Andy Warhol, Willem de Koonig, Picaso, Robert Rauschenberg and Antoni Tàpies. As works are lent by the various Guggenheims in Venice and New York it often rotates its art collection. More recent European art is also exhibited along with a broad range of works by up-and-coming Basque and Spanish artists.
Abu Dhabi
The new Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which is expected to be completed in 2013, will be located in the Cultural District of Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the UAE. It is to span over 450,000-square-foot, making it the world’s biggest Guggenheim facility. The museum is currently being designed by internationally renowned architect Frank Gehry, who already pleased the Guggenheim Foundation with his impressive work in Bilbao. The Abu Dhabi museum will house its own major modern and contemporary art collection and additionally present special exhibitions that will comprise of works from the Guggenheim Foundation’s vast collection. Moreover the museum will organise global art, exhibitions, and education programs with key focus on Middle Eastern contemporary art. According to the Guggenheim Foundation all works exhibited in that museum will respect Abu Dhabi’s culture as well as national and Islamic heritage. Amongst the museums features will be a permanent collection, several special-exhibitions galleries, a state of the art conservation laboratory, a centre for art, research and technology, an education facility and a centre for contemporary Arab, Islamic, and Middle Eastern culture. The new museum will carve a new approach to the museum visitor experience as it presents a pioneering vision for viewing contemporary art in the context of desert scenery.
Possible future Guggenheim (Helsinki)
The city of Helsinki recently commissioned the Guggenheim Foundation to conduct a study and explore the possibility of developing in Finland. According to a recent press release by the foundation, this concept and development study will explore several topics and possibilities. Amongst those will be the potential mission and structure of an inventive, multidisciplinary museum of visual culture in Finland, the form that the museum’s exhibition and education programs might take, its probable relationship with Helsinki’s other existing visual art institutions, the museum’s potential economic impact, and the scope of the Guggenheim Foundation’s involvement in its operation.
The feasibility study is expected to conclude at the end of 2011, at which time any initial recommendations about a new Guggenheim Museum would be subject to approval by the Guggenheim Bilbao as well as the City Council of Helsinki and the board of trustees of the Guggenheim Foundation. Once a decision is made to move ahead with the project, more tangible decisions can then be made, like selecting an architect and a location. The head of the Guggenheim Foundation recently emphasised what an unusual opportunity it will be to be able to start with a clean slate, without prescriptions and promises. “This time round there is an opportunity to re-imagine a museum for the next century”, he said. It is not yet clear what type of architectural plans are considered for the building itself. Original plans by the foundation included the Vilnius Guggenheim Hermitage, which was a proposed museum in Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. The museum was scheduled to open in 2011 but persistent doubts about its viability brought about a change of mind and consequently the honour was instead given to Helsinki.
