The Guggenheim Bilbao (photo: Denis Doyle for the New York Times)

A light patter bounced off the titanium fish scales of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao as a tour bus pulled up beside “Puppy,” Jeff Koons’s 43-foot-tall topiary terrier made of freshly potted pansies. A stream of tourists fanned out across the crisp limestone plaza, tripping over each other as they rushed to capture the moment on camera. After the frisson of excitement dimmed, they made their way down a gently sloping stairway and into the belly of the museum, paying 10.50 euros to see the work of an artist that most had never heard of.

It was a ritual that repeated itself several times an hour, like a well-run multiplex. And if Anselm Kiefer, the controversial post-war German artist, was eclipsed by the metallic blob that held a retrospective of his work, consider how Bilbao, a rusty port city on the northern coast of Spain, stacked up to the very museum that put it on the cultural map.

“We don’t know anything about Bilbao besides the Guggenheim,” said Luigi Fattore, 28, a financial analyst from Paris, who was taking pictures of his girlfriend under the puppy. As if to underscore the point, they showed up at the museum’s doorstep with their suitcase in tow. “We’ve arrived half an hour ago,” he said, “and went straight to the Guggenheim. Aside from the museum, we don’t have any plans.”

Read full article (New York Times, September 23, 2007)

Expansion of the Prado Museum in Madrid (photo: Matias Costa for The New York Times)

Over the last decade, with Spain in the feverish throes of what some have called the Bilbao Syndrome, it seemed as if any town with 50 or more residents somehow had 50 (or more) million euros to spend on a shiny new contemporary art museum, whether or not it had any contemporary art with which to fill it.

This investment in high-impact starchitecture, like the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Castilla y León in León, has had a ripple effect on museums around the globe, with some of the buildings themselves qualifying as works of art worthy of inclusion in a recent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

But no matter how many centers of artistic gravity are emerging in the Spanish firmament, the biggest star is about to get even bigger.

On Oct. 30, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía of Spain will cut the ribbon on the glorious new Jerónimos Wing of the Museo del Prado (Paseo del Prado; 34-91-330-2800; www.museoprado.es; 6 euros). Designed by the Spanish architect Rafael Moneo, the 150-million-euro expansion finally brings this nearly 200-year-old institution into the modern era.

Read full article (New York Times, September 23, 2007)