The Guggenheim hasn't even hired a director for the museum. The shows come from the Guggenheim home offices in New York to here, and that's it. For that reason, this incredibly beautiful building is an empty shell, as vacuous as Koon's topiary Puppy , plopped down at the entrance like one of those blimps announcing a sale. No wonder the E.T.A. tried to blow that puppy up. Housed in one of the great architectural achievements of our time, the museum is in operation nothing more than a retail outlet.
Culture is produced elsewhere and exported to be consumed.
Neither the rich artistic heritage of the Basques nor the history of Basque socialism and Bilbao's labor struggles have been given any place in the Guggenheim Bilbao. The Basque government has purchased the Guggenheim franchise in Spain. Basque hopes and aspirations are now ours as well. This is the voice of the New Globalism. It shows an angel with wild hair and eyes, with its wings raised and unfurled.