Amundsen in the Land of Titanium
Translation: Kristin Addis
Abstract
In the daily activity of this postmodern Babel, multilingualism is the norm: during the exhibition Africa 100%, the language of the Bete people of the Ivory Coast was heard in the corridors; loan agreements are made in Russian, English, French and German, and police commissioners come to us from many different countries. The strategic decision of the Guggenheim Foundation to use three different languages (Basque, Spanish and English) in all media of the Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao has created a volume of translation of unexpected proportions. In 2006 alone, the Museum commissioned translations valued at 70,000 euros. Add to this the variety in the types of texts (media for museum visitors, educational texts, catalogues, customs forms, contracts, etc.) to glimpse the difficulties involved. Indeed, the first and greatest pitfall we encountered was the scarcity of both terminology and reference texts in Basque related to modern and contemporary art. We often feel like explorers in terra incognita.
