You might remember that we recently visited The Kelpies. We seem to have a it of an animal theme  as Our Man In Bilbao recently  took this picture of Jeff Koon’s Puppy outside the Guggenheim:

Puppy is a 13 metre tall steel West Highland Terrier, covered in growing plants. It was originally created to stand outside a castle in Germany in 1992. In 1995, it was dismantled and recreated in Australia at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney Harbour. Two years later, it was bought by the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation and placed outside the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. (When it was first placed there a plot was foiled to use it as a cover for explosive-filled flowerpots, sadly leading to the death of a police officer called Jose María Aguirre – the square that Puppy stands in is now named after him.)

Jeff Koons said that the purpose of the piece was to create optimism, and to instil  “confidence and security.” And who doesn’t feel a bit better for seeing a flower-covered puppy?

Puppy is a permanent exhibit but there is a Jeff Koons retrospective at the Guggenheim Bilbao until September 27 2015.