On view through May 13, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Bilbao, Spain, presents “Henri Michaux: The Other Side,” a major retrospective exploring the life and work of one of the 20th century’s most enigmatic creative figures. Michaux earned acclaim as both a poet and a painter, and this exhibition brings together roughly 230 works and related materials—paintings, drawings, manuscripts, documents, and personal objects—that illuminate his experimental approach to language, image and altered states of perception.
The exhibition traces Michaux’s restless experimentation across decades and media, highlighting how his poetic practice and visual art informed one another. Visitors will encounter early ink drawings, later gestural paintings and rare documentary materials that chart his travels, collaborations and investigations into the limits of expression. The presentation emphasizes the artist’s pursuit of altered consciousness—through travel, drugs and introspective practices—as a central force shaping his visual language.
Also on view at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is “Esther Ferrer: Intertwining Spaces,” open through June 10. Esther Ferrer, a key figure in Minimalism and Conceptual Art, is recognized as one of Spain’s leading performance artists. This thematic exhibition assembles a selection of works tied to her performance practice and conceptual investigations into space, gesture and the body. Several of the featured pieces have not previously been shown in a public exhibition, offering fresh perspectives on Ferrer’s use of repetition, instruction-based scores and minimal actions to question authorship and spectatorship.
Together, these two exhibitions present complementary approaches to 20th- and 21st-century avant-garde practices: Michaux’s inward, poetic visual experiments and Ferrer’s outward, action-based interrogations of art’s social and spatial contexts. Both shows provide a rare opportunity to engage with primary works and archival material that reveal the artists’ processes and the historical contexts in which they worked.
Plan your visit to see a wide-ranging display of creative experimentation at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, where careful curation and archival research bring renewed attention to two influential figures whose practices continue to resonate in contemporary art and performance.