After a career in cultural institutions devoted to fashion, Miren Arzalluz (46) will leave her position as director at the Palais Galliera to take over as director of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in Spain next April. She was elected by the museum’s board of directors on November 12, 2024.
Miren Arzalluz was chosen for her international experience in the management of cultural institutions and for her knowledge of Basque culture: she was selected among 79 other candidates, a third of whom were foreign candidates.
A native of Bilbao, Miren Arzalluz is the daughter of Xabier Arzalluz, former leader of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), and a seamstress mother. After a master’s degree in comparative politics at a London university, she discovered fashion and became passionate about this world. She obtained a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Deusto (Spain) in 2000 and a master’s degree in fashion history from the Courtauld Institute of Art (London) in 2005.
Miren Arzalluz has led an international career in institutions dedicated to fashion and costume. She was responsible for collections and exhibitions at the Cristobal Balenciaga Museum from 2006 to 2013. She then became general director of the Etxepare Basque Institute for a year before succeeding Olivier Saillard as director of the Palais Galliera, Fashion Museum of the City of Paris, in 2018.
Miren Arzalluz also published Balenciaga: la forge du Maître (1895-1936), a reference work on the Spanish couturier, in 2010. She walked for Demna Gvasalia, artistic director of Balenciaga, during the spring summer 2024 collection. She was recently decorated with the distinction of signet ring of the Order of Arts and Letters.
Miren Arzalluz has led an ambitious renovation project at the Palais Galliera. Launched in October 2018, the work enabled the opening of the Gabrielle Chanel galleries, a new exhibition space in the basement, in 2020.
Miren Arzalluz replaces Juan Ignacio, director for 32 years. The latter announced his decision to leave office in May 2024 to “bringing a generational change at the head of the museum”. The new director will spend four preparatory weeks at the Guggenheim Bilbao and in New York from March 1, 2025 before officially taking up her duties, according to El Periodico.
The new director inherits a controversial project: the opening of an extension of the Guggenheim Bilbao in a Basque nature reserve. The environmental organization Urdabai Stop has already contacted Miren Arzalluz to ask her to abandon the project, according to Eitb. Costed at 40 million euros, the museum extension project, with a total area of 61,000 m², should be located on two sites: Guernica and Murueta, located in a biosphere reserve classified as a world heritage site. Unesco.
The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao opened in 1997. Located in the heart of Spain’s Basque Country, the titanium building designed by Frank Gehry houses collections of modern and contemporary art, including works by Picasso and outdoor sculptures, such as that the Puppy (1992) by Jeff Koons and the famous Mom (1999) by Louise Bourgeois, which dominates the museum square at 9 meters high.
