During my five months on an artist residency in the Northern Spanish City of Bilbao, I have noticed a lot of artists. Being based in an artist residency centre this is obviously a risk. Considering the size of the city, there seemed however to be more artists than you might find in a similarly sized post-industrial British city, such as, say, Wolverhampton.
The city is also home to many art venues, three major museums, the Guggenheim , the Azkuna Zentroa and the Museo de Bellas Artes , as well as a vibrant scene of artist initiatives, galleries and event spaces.
In order to find out how they make it work, I undertook some unscientific research and spoke to a motley mix of people about art and money.
He is based in the slightly run down and very trendy San Francisco area of Bilbao. The area houses a number of small galleries, community centres and studios as well as vibrant street prostitution and large groups of mainly young men engaged in various illicit business. Txema is passionate about his barrio, he is keen to create opportunities for excluded people and to establish an underground art scene rich in the niche and experimental.
He curates a number of art festivals and exhibitions including the MEM Festival and ExperimentoBio and brings many international artists to the city.
