22nd Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
Held on 16 mar 2021
Access to the microsite 22nd Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
The 22nd Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation and Restoration and supported by the MAPFRE Foundation, will be held on 16 and 17 March 2021. As an international encounter it sets out to share and debate experiences and research, open new channels of study and reflect upon the institutional management of conservation and the professional practice of restoration.
This new edition is held for the first time in a virtual format via 15-minute contributions from speakers, followed by a five-minute Q&A session live with the audience. It features participation from universities, museums, art centres, and restorers’ associations, among others. Attendance certificates will not be issued in this particular edition.
Those that have already signed up will receive an email with instructions and a link to the Museo’s online platform enabling them to follow and participate in the event. The activity will also be streamed live.
Programme
Tuesday, 16 March 2021 - Central European Time (CET)
3:30pm Opening session
4pm Presentation
Mabel Tapia (deputy director of Museo Reina Sofía), Jorge García Gómez-Tejedor (head of the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation and Restoration), Mayte Ortega (coordinator of the 22nd Contemporary Art Conservation Conference), and Leyre Bozal (curator of collections from the Culture Area of the MAPFRE Foundation).
4:15pm TetraArt: A System of Conservation and Existence in Digital Art Linked to Programming Code
Juan Alonso López Iniesta (Rey Juan Carlos University) and José Ramón Alcalá Mellado (University of Castilla-La Mancha).
4:40pm 3D Digitalisation Applied to the Study of the Artwork on Paper. Assessing the Use of Photogrammetry and Laser Scan Arms in Two-dimensional Heritage Conservation
M. Carme Balliu (Centre de Restauració de Béns Mobles de Catalunya) and Aleix Barberà Giné (independent conservator and restorer).
5:05pm Conservation Objectives for a LUGÁN sound work: Emulating to Exhibit, Restoring to Retrieve
Arianne Vanrell Vellosillo (Museo Reina Sofía).
5:30pm Georgia O'Keeffe Through Works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collections
Marta Palao González-Aller and Susana Pérez Pérez (Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum)
Co-author: Andrés Sánchez Ledesma (Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum).
5:55pm A Practical Assessment for a Video Installation Intervention Comprising CRT TVs: 6 TV Dé-Coll/age by Wolf Vostell
Regina Rivas Tornés (Museo Reina Sofía) and Elena Morales García (independent professional)
Co-author: Diego Mellado Martínez (independent professional).
6:20pm Performance Art in Portugal: Archive and Conservation
Ana Cancela (Centro de Investigação Transdisciplinar “Cultura, Espaço e Memória” from Universidade do Porto).
6:45pm Presentation of the Work Group Present-day and 20TH-CENTURY ART, by GE-IIC
Rita Amor García and Carlota Santabárbara (group coordinators)
6:55pm End
Wednesday, 17 March 2021 - Central European Time (CET)
4pm Opening session
4:15pm Dismantle, Divide, Destroy: Ethical Considerations During the Preservation of Enamel on Steel Painting in Architecture by Stefan Knapp (1921–1996) (in English)
Catia Wesolowska (Museo Nacional de Gdańsk).
4:40pm PVAc, its Application in Artistic Production and its Properties Opposite Aqueous Cleaning Treatments
Manuel Bochaca Arizaga (Universitat Politècnica de València)
Co-authors: Laura Osete Cortina and María Teresa Doménech Carbó (Universitat Politècnica de València).
5:05pm Beyond Phthalates: the Emission of Modern Plasticizers from Polymers and an Evaluation of the Degradation of Soft-PVC Objects in Museum Collections (in English)
Patricia Schossler (independent researcher).
5:30pm The Discovery and Restoration of an Oscar Domínguez Surrealist Object
Reyes Jiménez de Garnica (Museu Picasso de Barcelona)
Co-author: Humberto Durán (Museo Reina Sofía).
5:55pm Going Green in the Conservation of Contemporary Art and Design Objects: an Evaluation of Surface Cleaning with Biodegradable Agents (in English)
Elli Kampasakali (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Co-authors: Theodora Fardi, Eleni Pavlidou and Dimitrios Christofilos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki).
6:20pm Footprints of Historical Events in Artworks: the Museo de la Solidaridad Collection
Clara Barber Llatas (independent restorer)
Co-authors: José Antonio Madrid García (Universitat Politècnica de València) and Luis Montes Rojas (University of Chile).
6:45pm End
Coordinated by
Mayte Ortega, Department of Conservation-Restoration of the Museo Reina Sofía
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía
Sponsorship
The MAPFRE Foundation
![Miguel Brieva, ilustración de la novela infantil Manuela y los Cakirukos (Reservoir Books, 2022) [izquierda] y Cibeles no conduzcas, 2023 [derecha]. Cortesía del artista](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/ecologias_del_deseo_utopico.jpg.webp)
![Ángel Alonso, Charbon [Carbón], 1964. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/perspectivas_ecoambientales.jpg.webp)
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Through collective study, the group seeks to update critical debates surrounding the use of violence and non-violence, as well as to explore the conflict of their representation at the core of visual cultures. In a present marked by rearmament, war, genocide, and the collapse of the social contract, this group aims to equip itself with tools to, on one hand, map genealogies and aesthetics of peace—within and beyond the Spanish context—and, on the other, analyze strategies of pacification that have served to neutralize the critical power of peace struggles. Transitional and anti-punitive justice proposals will also be addressed, alongside their intersections with artistic, visual, and cinematic practices. This includes examining historical examples of tribunals and paralegal activisms initiated by artists, and projects where gestures, imaginaries, and vocabularies tied to justice, reparation, memory, and mourning are developed.
It is also crucial to note that the study programme is grounded in ongoing reflection around tactics and concepts drawn, among others, from contemporary and radical Black thought—such as flight, exodus, abolitionism, desertion, and refusal. In other words, strategies and ideas that articulate ways of withdrawing from the mandates of institutions or violent paradigms that must be abandoned or dismantled. From feminist, internationalist, and decolonial perspectives, these concepts have nourished cultural coalitions and positions whose recovery today is urgent in order to prefigure a new pacifism: generative, transformative, and radical.
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Wednesday, 4, and Thursday, 5 March 2026
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This edition will be held with in-person and online attendance formats, occurring simultaneously, via twenty-minute interventions followed by a five-minute Q&A.
Submitting Proposals
The deadline for presenting proposals ends on 28 September 2025. Those interested must send an email to jornada.conservacion@museoreinasofia.es, submitting the following documents:
- An unpublished proposal related to the conservation or restoration of contemporary art.
- A 1,700-word summary, written in Word, on the theme addressed. Please indicate the topic at the top of the document with five keywords and the presentation format (in-person or virtual). Preference will be given to the in-person format.
- CV and contact details.
- Only one proposal per person will be accepted.
- Proposals related to talks given in the last three conferences will not be accepted.
Proposals may be submitted in Spanish, French or English and will be evaluated by a Scientific Committee, which will select the submissions to be presented during these conference days and will determine their possible participation in a subsequent publication, the inclusion of which will undergo a second and definitive evaluation by the Editorial Committee.
For submissions in a virtual format, participants must send a recording following certain technical requirements they will receive once participation is confirmed.
The programme of sessions will be published in the coming days.
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How can we reframe the sense and practice of belonging away from reductive nationalist paradigms or the violence of displacement? How to critically hold the entanglement of the colonial routes and the cultural roots we are part of? What do we do with the toxic legacies we inherit? And with the emancipatory genealogies and practices that we choose to align with? Can a renewed practice of belonging and coalition-making through affinity be part of a process of dis/identification? What geographies —cultural, artistic, political— do these practices of de/centering, up/rooting, un/belonging and dis/alignment designate?
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