Image: Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Bilbao
Bilbao Fine Arts Museum is presenting 'Paralelos y meridianos. Colección Iberdrola', a selection of 138 modern and contemporary works from the Iberdrola Collection, on view from 29 April to 30 August 2026. The museum says the display marks the 125th anniversary of Iberdrola's founding in Bilbao and underscores the quality of one of the most notable corporate collections. It is curated by Guillermo Zuaznabar, the museum's chief curator.
The title comes from the two axes the museum says structure the Iberdrola Collection, and the works are grouped into eight thematic areas: Beginnings; Nature, Waters and Structures; Body and Traces; Work; Light; The Artist and Their Spaces; Architecture and Construction; and City and Port. The museum describes the result as an archipelago of recognisable places in art, in which works from different periods and origins are set in relation and in contrast, addressing both the universal and the local.
The museum's announcement frames the selection as an international itinerary and names Alex Katz, Andy Warhol, Marina Abramović, Miquel Barceló, Ai Weiwei, Tracey Emin, Olafur Eliasson, Bill Viola, Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter, Antonio López and Anselm Kiefer among the artists represented. The exhibition itinerary published by the museum opens with the sculptor Jorge Oteiza and illustrates its sections with works including Robert Mapplethorpe's 'Lowell Smith' (1981), Darío de Regoyos's 'Leaving the Factory' (1902), Dan Flavin's 'Untitled (to Madeline and Eric Kraft)' (1992), Juan Navarro Baldeweg's 'Pintor en el estudio 2' (2010), Kiefer's 'Orianda' (1985–1991), Thomas Struth's 'Jiangxi Zhong Lu, Shanghai' (1996) and Cristina Iglesias's 'Cúpula inclinada suspendida (Cita con Rama)' (2011).
The show runs across two sites. Alongside the museum galleries, the atrium of the neighbouring Iberdrola Tower holds works that the museum describes as site-specific because of their format and characteristics. The tower, built between 2007 and 2012 to a design by César Pelli on land previously earmarked for the port and industry, also supplies the vantage point for a work in progress by Antonio López: a diptych of Bilbao painted from the 29th floor, looking west towards the sea and east inland, with the tower's edges functioning as the two meridians that organise the canvases.
Admission to the museum is free and access is via Plaza Eduardo Chillida (park). Opening hours are Monday to Saturday, 10.00 to 20.00, and Sundays 10.00 to 15.00; the museum is closed on Tuesdays. Guided tours of the exhibition run every Wednesday at 18.00, free for Friends of the Museum and €3 for the general public, with reservation required, while guided visits to the Iberdrola Tower atrium are free and take place on Saturdays at 11.00, 12.00 or 13.00.
