and luxurious restaurants up and down the coast. sig rificantly, aside from perfunctory visits to Eduardo Ci ilida's outdoor sculptures and Bilbaa's fine-arts museum, no mention was made of the contemporary art soene, be it artists, commercial galleries, altemative spaces, other regional fine-arts museums or art study centers. So far, the international press has adopted a wait-and-see stance-logically, since most of Bilbao's projects remain uncompleted. But the Basques' anxiety that they and the GMB in particular be well- received is palpable. Extensive, positive intemational ck, rage is critical to their success if they hope to make goud on their investments and achice the GMB's goal of a half million visitors (40 percent foreign) and 66- percent private financing bythe year 2000. Locally, coverage has been abundant, but the Guggenheim scems unable to counteract its largely neg- ative slant. Some joumalists have occasionally used subversive tactics to obtain the latest Guggenheim sokap. Infonnation from GMB internal documents has oe n found its way into Basque dailies, such as the reuseum's working acquisitions list and its cntire four- year draft operating plan. Indeed, the stcady flow of leaks may soon render irrelevant the oft-heard com