The reopening of the 1970 building affords the museum the opportunity to survey five decades of contemporary art through projects and works that draw from a variety of artistic practices to show an expanded vision of art in public spaces.

Moving the museum’s activities to the 1970 building—which was recently restored alongside the construction of the new design by Foster and Uriarte—is the driving force behind this project, which showcases memory while also celebrating the institution’s vitality and role within the Basque art scene over five decades. In this story, the building designed by Álvaro Líbano and Ricardo Beascoa was the museum’s first enlargement with the goal of having a specific space for contemporary art, the first in Spain.

Entitled Ataria because it is like an atrium, prologue or threshold, the exhibition revives artworks and projects mostly dating from between 1973 and 2023, with the city of Bilbao and the museum as the backdrop. It will be held in successive episodes over the forthcoming months until June 2026 and will herald the opening of the museum’s spaces, both the renovated and the new ones.

This first instalment assembles paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and sound works, as well as other items like books, posters and record covers, which reflect the cultural memory of the city and the museum at different points in their history via a range of artistic practices.

From the mural De la ría al abra [From the estuary to the bay], created by Iñaki de la Fuente in 1973, to the sound piece Pausa pulsar [Pause push] that Ainara LeGardon made in 2023 for the museum collection’s move to Tabakalera (San Sebastián), Ataria (bat) has served as the temporal framework for a group of productions designed specifically for artistic spaces and institutions associated with Bilbao and the museum. Within this lengthy timeframe, the works show the public, expanded nature of the artistic practices used since the 1970s, when the museum undertook its first enlargement.

Around thirty works will occupy the former porch or atrium (ataria in Basque) on the ground floor of the Líbano and Beascoa building, which is once again becoming a covered square. Such important pieces will be displayed as the recently restored articulated mural Euskadi 1977-1979 by Agustín Ibarrola; the scale model of The matter of time (1994–2005) by Richard Serra, designed for the Guggenheim; the Juana Cima painting Sugoi (1985), which used to be at the Café Lamiak in Bilbao’s old quarter; and a series of works produced by the city’s art centres by Itziar Okariz (BilbaoArte), Gema Intxausti (Sala Rekalde) and Elena Aitzkoa (Azkuna Zentroa).

The exhibition will pay particular attention to projects created at our museum, like the interventions by José Luis Zumeta, Darío Urzay, Jon Mikel Euba, Maider López and June Crespo.