The ‘beast’ of Bilbao
You might not expect to find a towering puppy peering over the city of Bilbao, but if you visit you’ll find one. John Hillman explains all.
Fans of American artist Jeff Koons will know all about his 12.4 meter topiary sculpture Puppy. For those of you that don’t I ask you: What have you been doing with your lives?
Walking along the banks of the Nervion River in Bilbao on a warm afternoon you will see the famous forms of the Guggenheim Museum long before you reach them.
The building is a vast structure of shattered steel shapes that overlap and intersect with each other, like a silver 3D cubism piece that’s been swallowed up and spat back out by an Apple Mac. Never was a building better suited to the cultural history of a nation than the Guggenheim’s to Spain.
But what totally blows you away when you reach the building is the sudden discovery of Koons’ enormous Puppy. Literally, a 42 foot West Highland white terrier created from a kaleidoscopic bloom of multi-coloured flowers.
What strikes me about this wonderful work of art is that, just as the Guggenheim belongs in the land of Picasso and Dali, surely a work of supreme kitsch like Puppy should be brought to England, land of dog-lovers and gardeners, and placed in the middle of Hyde Park for Britons to enjoy.
Ah, but then I think, is that really the right way to appreciate something as magnificent as this. Surely in the UK this would be mistaken as the work of an over enthusiastic gardener, and not a statement by, for me at least, one of the best artists working in the world today.
Perhaps seeing it here in the drier and more passionate landscape of northern Spain is what really gives the piece its drama, the fact that it feels like, somehow, it just doesn’t belong.
You can enjoy this wonderful work of art for free when you are in Bilbao, just head along the river towards the big silver spaceship and see it for yourself. You can even go for a look in the middle of the night after a few drinks. Now where else in the world can you get drunk and stare at a 40 foot terrier made out of flowers? Only in the land of Dali and Picasso I suppose.
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!