Bilbao Guggenheim presents additional conditions for setting up Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki

Bilbao insists on being the first in Europe to stage touring exhibitions from New York

Juan Ignacio Vidarte

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The Guggenheim Museum in the Spanish city of Bilbao will not use its veto right against the planned Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki, provided that its surprising additional terms are complied with.
     
The board of the Spanish museum insists that the Bilbao Guggenheim should be the first museum in Europe to display the touring exhibitions from New York.
      The board also insists that the splitting of the increased cargo and other expenses caused by the widening museum network benefit the Bilbao unit. The Bilbao museum is also holding onto the veto right it enjoys, should the Helsinki undertaking change dramatically from the current plans.
      Guggenheim Foundation Director Richard Armstrong from New York said on Thursday that he will have to look into the Bilbao museum’s additional requirements more closely before issuing any comments.
      The Guggenheim Foundation promised a veto right to the Bilbao museum, launched in 1997, should the Foundation decide to set up further Guggenheim museums in Europe.
     
In January, director Juan Ignacio Vidarte of the Bilbao Guggenheim told Helsingin Sanomat that the museum planned in Helsinki will not pose a threat to the Bilbao museum’s visitor figures, owing to the geographic distance between the two venues.
      Nearly a million people visit the Bilbao museum each year, 85 per cent of whom come from outside the Basque Country economic area.
      For the Helsinki Museum, the Guggenheim Foundation has envisioned in excess of half a million annual visitors, more than half of them from Finland.
     
The Helsinki City Board is yet to receive for its consideration Mayor Jussi Pajunen’s presentation on the undertaking and the proposal for the letter of intent between the City and the Guggenheim Foundation.
      “My presentation text will be an integrated whole that will include the letter of intent plus information regarding private funding and the government’s thoughts”, Pajunen promises.
      “The presentation will be finished next week at the earliest, but definitely in the coming weeks.”


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki could get its own Guggenheim (18.1.2011)
  Majority of members of Helsinki City Council oppose Guggenheim (28.2.2012)
  Members of Helsinki municipal boards to get cautious assessments of Guggenheim from city officials (13.2.2012)
  Ministry of Culture trashes its own Guggenheim assessment (2.2.2012)

See also:
  Working group favours construction of Guggenheim museum in Helsinki (11.1.2012)

Helsingin Sanomat