Ruth Asawa retrospective
Bilbao’s Guggenheim just opened Spain’s first major Ruth Asawa retrospective — 250 wire sculptures and nature‑inspired works on view through September. The show maps Asawa’s organic forms across large-scale installations and promises a deep reappraisal of her sculptural lyricism. (efeminista.com)
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is presenting Ruth Asawa: Retrospective from March 19 to September 13, 2026 as the Bilbao edition of a travelling exhibition organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). (guggenheim-bilbao.eus) Bilbao’s presentation assembles roughly 250 works that span the artist’s production from 1947 through 2006. (efe.com) Earlier legs of the touring show were substantially larger on the checklist level: SFMOMA’s installation presented more than 300 works and included specially designed galleries evoking Asawa’s home. (sfmoma.org) MoMA’s version of the retrospective expanded its checklist further—reporting and exhibition documentation indicate MoMA’s presentation listed as many as 376 objects, a tally The Art Newspaper framed as one of the largest museum shows ever devoted to a woman artist at MoMA or SFMOMA. (theartnewspaper.com) The Bilbao show is co‑curated by Janet Bishop (SFMOMA) and Cara Manes (MoMA) with Geaninne Gutiérrez‑Guimarães of the Guggenheim, and the international tour receives support from the Henry Luce Foundation. (guggenheim-bilbao.eus) Exhibition materials and gallery design follow the travelling checklist’s mix of looped- and tied-wire sculptures, bronze casts, paperfolds, paintings, drawings and archival ephemera; SFMOMA’s run also included miniatures, a recreated living‑room gallery with Asawa’s hand‑carved redwood doors, an oral‑history booth and a terrace garden program that informed the touring presentation. (guggenheim-bilbao.eus) (sfmoma.org) The retrospective continues its international tour after Bilbao with a scheduled presentation at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel starting October 18, 2026, and the Bilbao dates coincide with the centennial year of Asawa’s birth (1926). (sfmoma.org) (guggenheim-bilbao.eus)
