THOMAS KRENS
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao:
Frank Gehry Designs a Masterpiece

With Special Guest
FRANK GEHRY
 

Thomas Krens, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation since 1988, presented the keynote lecture for this season’s ART Santa Fe Presents event at the Lensic Performing Arts Center on Saturday, July 14, at 7:00 p.m.  Krens addressed the timely topic of the intersections of art, architecture, and culture with his lecture, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao: Frank Gehry Designs a Masterpiece. 

 Under Krens’ leadership the Guggenheim has experienced substantial growth and flowering.  In the past two decades, the Guggenheim Foundation has developed an unprecedented international presence, with a network of cultural facilities and alliances with major museums around the world.  However, it was the unique partnership that Krens developed with the Basque Regional Government of Spain that set off an historic “boom” in art and architecture.  Designed by Frank Gehry, the museum at Bilbao, Spain quickly garnered world-wide attention as a landmark building of the 20^th Century.  In its first year the formerly economically depressed Basque region welcomed over 1,300,000 visitors to the new Guggenheim Bilbao.  The museum’s success has led to a revitalization of the region and millions of visitors continue to visit the museum. 

 The success of the Guggenheim Bilbao, dubbed the “Bilbao effect” is due in large part to the critically acclaimed architectural design by Frank Gehry. Mr. Gehry agreed to appear as a special guest along with Thomas Krens for this event.  Gehry, the Pritzker Prize winning architect of international note, engaged Mr. Krens in a dialogue about the Guggenheim Bilbao, as well as about the newly announced monumental project underway in Abu Dhabi.  Gehry’s own laurels are quite notable, including the AIA’s Gold Medal and the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.  His life and work have been documented in the recent documentary film by award-winning director Sydney Pollack: Sketches of Frank Gehry.

2007

Philippe de Montebello, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art for more than 25 years, chose to address only three venues in the United States during 2005; his lecture in Santa Fe, sponsored by ART Santa Fe Presents, was one of the three. Mr. de Montebello gave a carefully prepared and beautifully illustrated one-hour lecture, "Museums: Why Should We Care?"

Respected throughout the international art community and acclaimed for his dynamic, captivating lectures, Philippe de Montebello is uniquely positioned to speak on the state of the museum world today. Mr. de Montebello was born in Paris, attended French schools throughout the Baccalaureate, graduated Magna cum Laude from Harvard University in 1958 and received an advanced degree from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. He became an American citizen in 1955. With the exception of four and a half years he spent as Director of The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, his career has evolved at The Metropolitan.

Under Mr. de Montebello's leadership, The Metropolitan has conducted an outstanding acquisitions program and at the same time has vastly expanded its areas of international loan exhibition and education. Its growing audience now numbers more than five million visitors a year. To these visitors Mr. de Montebello is also the familiar and elegant voice of The Metropolitan, guiding visitors through special exhibitions and installations with the use of audio tours that he has narrated for most of his tenure.

2005

Philippe de Montebello