Subject: What if the most interesting thing near Bilbao

was not inside the obvious building?

Nietzsche said:

“Become who you are.”

And maybe that is exactly what a real art space should do.

Not pretend.
Not decorate.
Not flatter the algorithm.

Become what it is.

And let You step inside.

1. Some time ago, we wrote about Nietzsche and Martin by James Jarvis

We wrote that Martin didn’t need to shout.

He stood there.
Quiet.
Calm.
Certain.

Born from James Jarvis and Silas, Martin felt like an idea more than a product. A form of creation beyond morality, beyond norms. Not because it was immoral. But because it refused to ask permission from the usual categories.

That stayed with us.

Because if we are honest, Art Toy Gama has always believed the same thing.

That creation does not begin with approval.
It begins with necessity.

Not with fitting in.
With becoming.

2. And that is also the story of this place

For years, we worked in Getxo, in a much smaller studio inside an office building.

It had beautiful views.
It gave us shelter.
It held more than one beginning.

But little by little, it became too small for what we were trying to build.

Too small for the works.
Too small for the books.
Too small for the contradictions.
Too small for the kind of Movement we had been shaping since 2014.

Then another possibility started calling us.

An old family carpentry and cabinetmaking workshop.
A place where Sergio’s father had worked for more than twenty years.
A place full of labour, memory, dust, effort, and stubbornness.

He retired.
The space was rented out.
Life moved on.

Until one day, the question appeared:

What if this was not the end of that story?
What if it was the beginning of ours?

And in March 2024, it became exactly that.

Not a polished gallery.
Not a neutral white cube.
A reclaimed industrial pavilion of nearly 180 square metres.
A Studio-Gallery.
A working body.

3. Before we had even fully moved in, we had already started becoming it

That is the part we love most.

Because sometimes You do not wait for certainty.
You build before certainty arrives.

Before the move was completely settled, we organized an exhibition here with works by Judas Arrieta, one of the co-founders of Art Toy Gama together with Cristina A. del Chicca and myself, Sergio.

The title said everything:

My Favourite Art Toys.

A love letter.
A declaration.
A way of saying that ArT Toys are not a side note to culture. They are culture wearing a stranger skin.

And we did not stop at the walls.

We turned that moment into a book.
Photographs.
Essays.
Texts.
The works that shaped the event.
Memory fixed before it could disappear.

Because this is what we do, and what we have always tried to do, even when we got things wrong, even when our resources were limited, even when our ideas ran ahead of our possibilities:

Not just show works.
But weave stories between artists, brands, images, texts, references, and time.

Sometimes we succeeded.
Sometimes we failed.
Sometimes halfway.

But always with the same obsession:

To build a place where things mean more because they touch each other.

4. So what happens if You visit us near Bilbao?

You do not come here only to “see art.”

You come to enter a living space.

A Studio-Gallery near Bilbao, beyond the Guggenheim route, where ArT Toys, paintings, fine art prints, books, magazines, posters, archives, and unfinished ideas coexist.

You see works, yes.

But You also see how we work.
How we place things.
Why certain pieces stay close to us.
Why others lead to books.
Why a poster can matter as much as a painting.
Why an ArT Toy can carry more truth than an entire room full of polite objects.

And if You want, You can talk to us about whatever interests You most.

About James Jarvis.
About Martin.
About Nietzsche.
About Judas Arrieta.
About why the ArT Toy Movement still matters in Spain.
About what we collect.
About what we write.
About what we are trying to protect from forgetfulness.

That is the visit.

Not consumption.
Conversation.

Not passive looking.
Shared decoding.

5. Bilbao has the Guggenheim. We offer another kind of encounter.

Let’s be clear.

We are not trying to compete with the Guggenheim.

That would be absurd.

But anyone travelling to Bilbao for art should know this:

There are other ways to meet it.

Closer to the ground.
Closer to process.
Closer to the people doing the work.
Closer to the strange, fragile, rebellious things that do not always fit inside official narratives.

Art Toy Gama is one of those places.

A Studio-Gallery managed by an artistic collective.
A space built slowly.
A place shaped by mistakes, persistence, belief, and a refusal to reduce art to decoration.

Maybe that is our own version of Nietzsche’s sentence.

Become who you are.

Not who the market wants.
Not who the trend rewards.
Not who the platform tolerates.

Who you are.

And then build the space that proves it.

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Art Toys. Paintings. Fine Art Prints. Not what you expect.

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Real collectors don't follow trends—they redefine them

Also you can read: (Visiting Bilbao ? Discover Our Art Toy Studio-Gallery)