Spanish Puppy Makes a Statement

Can’t say the good people of Bilbao, Spain don’t have a sense of humour. What better way to welcome the world to their magnificent art gallery, the Guggenheim Bilboa, than with a warm and endearing puppy and who doesn’t like puppies?

This puppy is 43 feet tall and sheds petals not fur.

Puppy is a huge floral sculpture created by American artist Jeff Koons in 1992 and first exhibited at New York’s Rockefeller Center before finding its new home in northern Spain. Koons has another whimsical sculpture inside the Guggenheim as well called Tulips which consists of seven huge, shiny unopened tulips rendered in reflective stainless steel. He’s been called a Minimalist, a Surrealist or a Pop artist, take your pick. Like Warhol, Koons exaggerates the trappings of popular culture. It’s hard to say whether he likes pop culture or he’s making fun of it. Perhaps both.

It’s hard to ignore Puppy. It sits there impassively, surveying its domain like the Sphinx, wrapped in its coat of over 38,000 marigolds, begonias, impatiens, and petunias.

The structure is supported by an enormous stainless-steel armature covered with a layer of turf, wire mesh, and geotextile fabric which hold the plants in place. Interior piping supplies water to feed the flowers every twenty-four hours and a team of twenty people groom Puppy’s coat twice a year, in May and October, replacing old flowers with seasonal varieties to conform to the climate. It’s the largest floral sculpture in the world.

Puppy is not the only large sculpture at the Guggenheim. Puppy’s at one end of the complex and the much-photographed 27 foot tall steel spider called Maman sits at the other.

I prefer Puppy. It’s round, bulbous shape is a nice contrast to the sharper, vertical cathedral-like expanse of the gallery’s interior.

Flowers have a universal appeal. They add texture, colour and generate a feeling of calm. Besides, Maman is static while Puppy, covered in fresh blooms which are replenished twice a year, is literally and figuratively alive.

Best of all, Puppy adds a playful element to what some would call a sobering experience. Art galleries can be reverential and oh so serious with row after row of “important” works. They can be stuffy. I appreciate Puppy’s levity.

I went to the Guggenheim to see modern art. The big guys are there, Rothko, Rauschenberg, and De Kooning, among others, so art lovers won’t be disappointed but I didn’t know about Puppy and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a welcome introduction to an important (and not boring) tourist attraction. Woof.