Ruth Asawa: Retrospective

Come celebrate 100 years of Ruth Asawa with us!

This special exhibition marks the centenary of the artist’s birth in 1926, offering a warm look at a century of creativity and innovation.

This is a truly deep dive into Asawa’s world, featuring nearly 250 works created over an incredible six-decade career. While she is best known for her iconic wire sculptures, you’ll also get to see her drawings, prints, paintings, and even some of her commercial product designs. Across ten different sections, the exhibition explores the common threads that tie her work together, specifically her famous signature style of creating a 'form within a form.'

Asawa’s sculptures have a magical quality; they’ve been described as filling a room without 'stealing the air.' Because they are crafted from delicate, looped wire, you can see right through them, creating a beautiful conversation between the inside and the outside of each piece. Keep an eye on the walls, too—we’ve designed the lighting to cast intricate shadows that Asawa considered a vital part of her art.

While her famous wire 'baskets' are the stars of the show, the Bilbao exhibition highlights other fascinating chapters of her life. You can explore her early experimental days at Black Mountain College under the guidance of Josef Albers, or learn about her community-focused projects and her beloved public fountains in San Francisco. We also feature her lesser-known work with paper-folding and lithography, which reveal her love for geometric patterns and the meditative nature of working by hand.

Here’s a tip for your visit: take a close look at the textures. It is amazing to see how Asawa took 'common' materials like galvanized steel and copper wire—things you’d normally find on a farm or a construction site—and transformed them into something that looks so fluid, organic, and alive.