- The exhibition, which will be on display at the URIBITARTE40 Hall until February 1, 2026, reflects on the unique characteristics that define the BilbaoArte Collection.
- Designed specifically for the gallery, it is the second exhibition on the BilbaoArte Collection produced as part of a curatorial call for proposals.
- The exhibition draws on a varied selection of works and artists that have been part of BilbaoArte during its twenty-seven years of existence as an artistic production center.
- The project is complemented by several activities open to the public, such as guided tours, a conversation, a performance, and a meeting
(Bilbao, 26 November 2025).- BilbaoArte, Bilbao City Council’s artistic production center, presents “There Is No Coming Back from the collection. BA Collection”, a new exhibition produced as part of a curatorial call for the URIBITARTE40 Hall. The exhibition will be open to the public free of charge from November 28, 2025, to February 1, 2026.
Curated by Nerea Ayerbe and Jaime Cuenca, the exhibition presents a project that reflects on the unique characteristics that define the BilbaoArte Collection. The exhibition draws on a varied selection of works and artists that have been part of BilbaoArte during the 27 years of the artistic production center’s existence. In total, there are 55 works by 52 artists and collectives, many of whom are established and still active today.
The project is rounded off with several guided tours adapted to Spanish Sign Language (December 3 and January 14 in Basque; and in Spanish on December 10 and January 21, at 7:00 p.m.), and public programs consisting of a conversation with Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz and Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro (December 11 at 7:00 p.m.), a performance by artist Pablo Marte (January 15 at 7:00 p.m.), and a meeting with the prestigious playwright Juan Mayorga (February 1 at 12:00 p.m.), author of the play La colección (2024), which is the basis for this exhibition project.
The publication designed by Maite Zabaleta will expand on the curatorial discourse and delve deeper into the nature of the BilbaoArte Collection and its artists. It will be presented and made available to visitors to the gallery on January 15 at 7:00 p.m.
EXHIBITION DETAILS
Title: There Is No Coming Back from the collection. BA Collection
Artists: Alberto Albor, Greta Alfaro, Izaskun Álvarez Gainza, Elssie Ansareo, Alejandro Arteche, Atakontu (Ibai León and Sara Campillo), Erika Barahona, Nuria Batalla, Naia del Castillo, June Crespo, Lourdes de la Villa Liso, Cristina Ferrández Box, Pau Figueres Ortiz, Cristina Fonsaré, Andrew Gangoiti, Helí García, Kepa Garraza, Leticia Gaspar, Miguel Ángel Gaüeca, Ignacio Goitia, Edurne González Ibáñez, Helena Goñi, Amaia Gracia Azqueta, Patrik Grijalvo, Jabier Herrero, Carlos Irijalba, Jorge Isla, Irune Jiménez Orbea, Gala Knörr, Aitor Lajarín, Erramun Landa, David Martín Angulo, Nacho Martínez Górriz, Ara Méndez, Kiko Miyares, Idoia Montón, Fermín Moreno, Francisco Navarrete, Carmen Olmos, Lezuri Ormazabal, Txuspo Poyo, Mara Reguilón, Mabi Revuelta, Ana Riaño, Jorge Rubio, Ixone Sádaba, Ignacio Sáez, Dora Salazar, Iker Serrano, Eduardo Sourrouille, Jelena Sredanovic, Begoña Zubero.
Curated by: Nerea Ayerbe, Jaime Cuenca
Graphic image and publication design: Maite Zabaleta
Venue: BilbaoArte. URIBITARTE40 Hall (Paseo de Uribitarte, 40. 48009 Bilbao).
Dates: November 28, 2025 – February 1, 2026
Opening program: Friday, November 28, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
“THERE IS NO COMING BACK FROM THE COLLECTION. BA COLLECTION”
“There Is No Coming Back from the collection. BA Collection” is the second exhibition on the BilbaoArte collection produced within the framework of the 2nd Call for Curators, with the aim of giving visibility to the artists featured in the collection and offering new readings and interpretations of the imagery that the works and artists offer as a whole. The initiative also seeks to create a line of support for professionals in the arts and culture sector for the development of curatorial projects.
Nerea Ayerbe and Jaime Cuenca, the curators selected for this second edition, present an exhibition project that reflects on the particularities that characterize and make the BilbaoArte Collection unique. Among other things, its heterogeneous nature: it is not focused on a particular artistic medium or aesthetic language, nor on a school or style; it does not bring together artists from a specific generation or who share convictions, training, or career paths; nor is there a single concept that can explain the collection as a whole.
Another characteristic is that it is a radically incomplete collection, as it consists of works produced by resident artists during their stay at BilbaoArte, which constitutes an unlimited series that is open by definition.
In addition to the above, it is a collection that is determined by a multiplicity of criteria: throughout BilbaoArte’s existence, different artists and managers, under diverse criteria and values, have decided which works to include in the Collection, resulting in random growth. At the same time, the pieces are marked by an unavoidable condition, that of having been produced at BilbaoArte; that is, produced in the same facilities, often next to each other, and always responding to the same spatial context.
To this end, the project comprises a varied selection of 55 works and 52 artists and collectives that have been part of BilbaoArte during the 27 years of the artistic production center’s existence.
In their exhibition proposal, Ayerbe and Cuenca aim to emphasize the condition shared by all the selected works, namely that they are pieces from the same collection. Rather than imposing a narrative or discursive sequence on them, the works are presented in four rooms or sections (The time between their things; Saving what is necessary;
Something new in the others and A secret masked by the collection), groups that seek to broaden each work in contact with others, expand it, enrich it, and encourage the emergence of plural and diverse interpretations by the public. To this end, they seek to challenge the initial assumptions with which the public will approach the exhibition, generating a certain strangeness by opting for a form of installation that is unusual in contemporary art. Thus, the works are presented in a variegated manner in the exhibition space, in the manner of what happened in Baroque art galleries before the chronological arrangement by schools and authors became widespread.
The title of the exhibition, “There Is No Coming Back from the collection. BA Collection”, highlights precisely these characteristics and this particular way of collecting. Something that has made it unique and continues to do so, that defines it and continues to condition it with no possibility of turning back, and that offers those who know it its own unique perspective on the world, which cannot be dismissed without loss. The curatorial proposal and its structure are inspired by the text of the play La colección (2024) by Juan Mayorga, who has managed to bring to the stage some tremendously lucid insights into the vital and theoretical implications of the act of gathering and treasuring pieces, giving rise to the title of the exhibition and those of the four rooms or sections.
LIST OF WORKS AND SECTIONS
The time between your things
The public accesses the collection, travels to it. This apparent triviality characterizes our relationship with the collection: that we have to travel to a place where it can be seen. The immobility of the collection, however, is only illusory, since the pieces have also traveled their own paths to become part of it, and continue to travel them afterwards. More than the things themselves, what is witnessed in a collection is how an image comes to be or ceases to be, is lost or saved. Each thing contains the time that has been deposited in it, and the collection, the time between its things.
Cristina Ferrández Box: Buscando un lugar para morir I (2007); Cristina Fonsaré: Are You My Angel (2012); Helena Goñi: The Sleepers (#1, 2 y 3) (2017-2019); Amaia Gracia Azqueta: Fronteras de oro (2012); Aitor Lajarín: Viñetas (2005); Erramun Landa: Suite BilbaoArte (nº6) (2008); Ara Méndez: And they will come from the sky (VII, VIII, IX) (2022); Kiko Miyares: Sin título (2004); Idoia Montón: Singular vuelo (2002); Fermín Moreno: Ataque mercenario (1999); Iñaki Sáez: Sin título (2005); Eduardo Sourrouille: A cuatro patas (si dices algo ahora te creeré) (1999); Jelena Sredanovic: Travelling Formation (2012) y Rolling over Basque Country (2012)
Saving what is necessary
Collecting is a way of doing justice to things. By putting them in order, we surround ourselves with protection against the chaos and otherness of the world. We build an environment to feel that it is under our control: whether that of a person or an institution. At its core, we seek a warmth that comforts and reconciles us, but any order always has limits that we are afraid to cross and is constantly threatened with ruin. Outside the collection, there are only ghosts.
Alberto Albor: Edén V.2.0 (2006-2008); Greta Alfaro: Ciudades de juguete (2005); Andrew Gangoiti: F- Hole (2011) y Torqueo (2011); Helí García: TreeHouse (2021); Leticia Gaspar: Babel (2018); Ignacio Goitia: Vacaciones en París 1 (1999); Edurne González Ibáñez: Espacios entre (2016); Patrik Grijalvo: Photography as object 24 (2014); Jorge Isla: BLOQUES #6 (2023); Carmen Olmos: Botes (2005); Jorge Rubio: Babesa (2014); Iker Serrano: Doña Casilda (2009).
Something new in the others
In the very act of joining a collection, a work of art comes to share something in common with all the other pieces that accompany it and, at the same time, transforms them. Each thing is reborn in the collection and brings something new to the others. It seems that each piece has a unique space, a necessary position reserved in advance. It must defend it from any intrusion by separating itself: being the work that was produced and, at the same time, embodying the irreplaceable value that accredits it as part of the collection. More important than the pieces themselves is their gathering, the way in which each one is affected by the others.
Izaskun Álvarez Gainza: Loin (2010); Elssie Ansareo: El observatorio (2012); Naia del Castillo: El jardín (2005); Lourdes de la Villa Liso: Secuencia imaginada. Nivel 4. Cuadro 2 (2010); Kepa Garraza: Sin título 5 (2004); Jabier Herrero: La novia (2004) y El novio (2004); Gala Knörr: Me in The Art World (2016); Ibai León y Sara Campillo (Atakontu): V^V (2009); David Martín Angulo: Colonia de árboles pájaro (2011); Nacho Martínez Górriz: Autorretrato (2000); Ana Riaño: Cuando ve lo que ha pasado (2011); Ixone Sádaba: Citerón IV (2003); Dora Salazar: Sin título (2000)
A secret masked by the collection
We think of visiting an exhibition as a visual event, which seems to consist solely of shifting our gaze across the works of art. But these always conceal as much as they reveal. Firstly, the reason for their inclusion in the collection and their subsequent selection for the exhibition. That is why it is better to enter without any intention, to let things lead us and for each visit to present us with something incomprehensible. There is a secret that the collection masks.
Alejandro Arteche: Adiós Madrid (2000); Erika Barahona: Seascape (2011); Nuria Batalla: Lugares afines (2004); June Crespo: Chance Album nº1 (2015); Pau Figueres Ortiz: 30 de enero de 2013, Lenin tenía razón Mr. Goebbels (2013); Miguel Ángel Gaüeca: Dentro (in) (1998); Carlos Irijalba: Switch off all devices (2008); Irune Jiménez Orbea: Fuga (2012); Francisco Navarrete: Sin título. De la serie «Meteoros, aparatos y vórtices» (2015); Lezuri Ormazabal: Geometrías ocultas (miradas precisas) (2011); Txuspo Poyo: Ambientes hostiles (2005); Mara Reguilón: Sin título (1999); Mabi Revuelta: ABECEDA, Ballet Triádico (2009); Begoña Zubero: Sin título (2000).
PUBLIC PROGRAMS
All activities are free of charge until full capacity is reached.
OPENING PROGRAM
Guided tour with the curators
Friday, November 28, 6:00 p.m.
Opening and public presentation
Friday, November 28, 7:00 p.m.
GUIDED TOURS
Simultaneous guided tour in LSE (Spanish sign language) and spoken language
Wednesday, December 3, January 14 (Basque), 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday, December 10, January 21 (Spanish), 7:00 p.m.
CONVERSATION
Always searching for its form
Thursday, December 11, 7:00 p.m.
Participants: Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro (artistic director of the University of Navarra Museum (Pamplona)), Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz (director of exhibitions and collections at the Botín Center (Santander)).
Moderators: Nerea Ayerbe and Jaime Cuenca
PERFORMANCE AND BOOK PRESENTATION
Performance by BilbaoArte resident artist, writer, and researcher Pablo Marte
Thursday, January 15, 7:00 p.m.
Performance inspired by Juan Mayorga’s text La colección (2024).
“There Is No Coming Back from the collection. BA Collection”
Thursday, January 15, 7:00 p.m.
Participants: Maite Zabaleta, designer; Nerea Ayerbe and Jaime Cuenca, curators
CLOSING OF THE EXHIBITION
Meeting with playwright Juan Mayorga
Sunday, February 1, 12:00 p.m.
EXHIBITION CURATED BY
Nerea Ayerbe (Bilbao, 1982) is a curator, editor, and researcher in contemporary art. She holds a PhD in Contemporary Art Theory and a degree in Humanities and Business from the University of Deusto. She completed a Master’s Degree in Art Market and Related Business Management at the Antonio de Nebrija University in Madrid. Her professional career has been linked to organizations such as Sprovieri Gallery in London, the art production company consonni in Bilbao, and the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country. She currently works at Azkuna Zentroa-Alhóndiga Bilbao. She teaches modern and contemporary art and art market classes at the University of Deusto. In addition to her extensive experience in editing and coordinating publications, she is the author of several articles in specialized magazines and chapters in collective works, as well as the book La permanencia de la performance. Tensiones del arte efímero en el museo (Dykinson, 2021). She is the author of several entries in Bloomsbury Art Markets. Protagonists, Networks, Provenances and has contributed to magazines such as HoyEsArte and El Grito. She has curated exhibitions such as Confluencias, Terra ignota, and Problemas en el paraíso, as well as shows dedicated to the artists Patrik Grijalvo, Ra Asensi, Gabriel Coca, and Mariemi Otaola.
Jaime Cuenca (Bilbao, 1983) is a philosopher and art critic. He works at the intersection of art theory, political philosophy, and the history of everyday practices. He has published more than twenty articles in scientific journals and is the author of three monographs. He is a professor of Language Theory at the University of Deusto, where he teaches aesthetics and art theory, and has been a visiting researcher at various international institutions such as the Walter Benjamin Archiv, the Technische Universität and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (in Berlin), the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Mexico City), and, together with Boris Groys, at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Karlsruhe, Germany). He maintains a continuous reflection from the perspective of art theory and criticism on the contemporary conditions of artistic reception, which has been reflected in numerous guest lectures at art centers (Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, Guggenheim Bilbao, CENDEAC, BilbaoArte, Museo Universitario Del Chopo in Mexico City…), articles in specialized magazines (Concreta, Lápiz, A*Desk, etc.), and several artist catalogs. Since 2009, he has been responsible for the art criticism section of the Bilbao newspaper, where he has published more than 200 reviews of exhibitions in galleries and venues in the local art scene.