Delcy Morelos, Sorgin
From the first cave paintings, art has been the tool to understand our place in the universe and to make sense of our relationship with the Earth. Guggenheim Bilbao’s new exhibition, Arts of the Earth, shows us how art has evolved over 60 years in its depiction and understanding of nature in the face of the overwhelming environmental crisis. Over 40 artists from different generations and from around the world and different practices are featured in the Frank Gehry designed building.
“In recent years, artists from different generations and different cultures have pondered how to work with the earth when care and repair is most needed; how to appreciate and repay it for its gifts; and how to learn from what it brings us when it seems stripped of its natural wealth. The constructive potential of soil and its components extends far beyond classic formulations of sculpture, architecture, design, and landscaping. In a concrete, familiar, and dynamic sense, soil is the scene of incessant communication and exchange, of essential synergy between species that is constantly transcended for the good of the whole,” explains the museum.
Giuseppe Penone, Unghia e foglie di alloro
“The exhibition devotes considerable space to the countless ways of working with soil in its various states and forms—such as mud, sand, sawdust, and weeds—as well as experimental, even spurious mixtures combining natural elements and industrial waste, processes of decay or alteration of sculptures in close contact with the earth.” Some artists have used mud and clay from the forests of Biscaye and the Nervion estuary, near Guggenheim Bilbao.
One of the most powerful pieces is Colombian artist Delcy Morelos’s Sorgin. In the Basque language, Sorgin means “witch”. The huge piece, blending the distinction between art and architecture, is a mixture of mud, clay, hay, cinnamon, cloves and other materials which creates an immersive sensory experience permeating the entire museum. The title of the piece is also a tribute to the ancestral wisdom of Basque women - midwives, healers “with knowledge of native medicinal plants, capable of communicating with trees, plants, and mountains, and keepers of wisdom, which aroused the fear of the dominant Catholic society, leading to their persecution.”
Some of the works shown at Guggenheim Bilbao were prophetic, like Michelle Stuart’s ephemeral Extinct (1992), mapping the passage of time and space and imbued with a sense of urgency, telling us that species are disappearing fast. The exhibition also makes space for living species, like Isa Melsheimer’s Wardian Case. The growth of trees and plants in a museum environment, outside of their element, reminds us of the interdependence of relationships between species. We are as shaped by plants and trees as they are by our actions.
– Jean-Sébastien Stehli
Isa Melsheimer, Cas Wardian
Arts of the Earth. Until May 3, 2026. guggenheim-bilbao.eus/
Gabriel Orozco. Roiseau 6. Photo Florian Kleinefenn
