The exhibition traces the history of the steamship Cabo Blanco, built in 1908 at the Euskalduna Shipyard — on the site where Itsasmuseum Bilbao now stands — and lost off the Portuguese coast at Montedor on 13 July 1936, in thick fog, in the days immediately preceding the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Its last captain was Darío Urzay Cuesta, the artist’s grandfather.

The exhibition stems from the discovery of a large collection of family photographic negatives and a subsequent search through newspaper archives, maritime archives and historical documentation. In this process, the Cabo Blanco emerges not merely as a lost ship, but as a presence that invites reflection on memory, loss, the fragments of the past, and the boundaries between historical fact and Darío Urzay’s personal reconstruction.

Taking this ship as his starting point, the artist constructs an exhibition that moves between document and evocation, between archive and landscape, between what can be known and what can only be sensed. The exhibition thus follows the trail of a family history bound to the Cabo Blanco.

The exhibition begins in 1908, with the ship’s construction. This section brings together historical postcards and works created by the artist using the “camerastroke” technique, rendered from the same perspective as the original images. It continues with a section dedicated to navigation and coastal routes, and concludes with the account of its final voyage and shipwreck.

A final section displays photographic documentation of various objects found on 15 July 2025 by Darío Urzay himself, during an introspective journey to the intertidal zone near the Montedor lighthouse on the Portuguese coast, more than a century after the ship’s launch.

Alpha and Omega of a Steamship. The Last Wake of Cabo Blanco does not present a definitive reconstruction. The exhibition invites visitors to navigate between layers: what the documents say, what the images suggest, what survives in the material remains, and what lies outside the archive. Visitors are therefore invited to encounter a narrative situated between historical research, family memory and the maritime landscape.

The project is on display in a highly significant setting: just 80 metres from the spot where the ship was built; the ship itself was also 80 metres long. This creates a dialogue between the ship’s physical origins, Bilbao’s industrial heritage, and a contemporary perspective on time, transience and legacy.

With this exhibition, Itsasmuseum reinforces its commitment to the preservation and dissemination of maritime culture, approaching heritage not only as a collection of objects and documents, but also as a realm of memory, interpretation and shared emotion.

A guide to the exhibition, available in the gallery in three languages — Basque, Spanish and English — accompanies visitors throughout the exhibition. Alpha and Omega of a Steamship. The Last Wake of Cabo Blanco is supported by Laboral Kutxa and will be on display at Itsasmuseum until 6 September 2026.

Darío Urzay

Darío Urzay (Bilbao, 1958) is one of the most prominent Basque contemporary artists of his generation. A graduate in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country, his career spans more than four decades of work, during which he has pursued an ongoing exploration of the boundaries between painting, photography and digital imagery.

His work has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions at various national and international museums and art centres, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, the Reina Sofía National Art Centre, MACBA and the ICA in London. Among the awards he has received are the Gure Artea Award and the National Award for Graphic Art.