The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has this week announced the appointment of Miren Arzalluz as its general director. She will succeed Juan Ignacio Vidarte, who confirmed in May that he will resign from the post after more than 30 years.
Arzalluz, who has served as the director of the Paris Fashion Museum-Palais Galliera for six years, was born in Bilbao in 1978. She will join the Guggenheim on 1 March 2025, overlapping for a month with Vidarte, who will officially step down on 1 April 2025.
According to the museum’s board of trustees, Arzalluz was selected due to her “proven international experience and renown in the field of cultural institutions [and] her long-term commitment to the project”. In addition, the board cited her alignment with “the museum’s mission to serve as a key driving force of the Basque Country’s transformation strategy and her sensibility toward the diverse cultural contexts where the museum is currently operating”.
Vidarte, the Guggenheim’s outgoing director, has overseen one of the most extraordinary museum successes of the past 30 years. Frank Gehry’s spectacular gleaming glass-and-titanium-clad building is credited with turning a decaying port city into an international cultural tourism destination—a phenomenon that has become known internationally as the “Bilbao effect”. Last year, visitor numbers reached a record 1.3 million.
Arzalluz has a master’s degree in art history from London’s Courtauld Institute of Art and another in comparative politics from the London School of Economics. She gained a PhD in history from Deusto University. Before moving to Paris, she was the director of a public institution to promote the Basque language and contemporary culture.
