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Thursday, 7 March 2024
09:45am Opening and Presentation
Manuel Segade (director of the Museo Reina Sofía), Jorge García Gómez-Tejedor (head of the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Restoration), Mayte Ortega (coordinator of the 25th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference) and Leyre Bozal (collections conservator from the Culture Department of the MAPFRE Foundation)10am The Study and Restoration of Pablo Picasso’s Buste de jeune femme (Bust of a Young Woman, 1906)
Paloma Calopa, Ana Iruretagoyena, María Barra and Humberto Durán (Museo Reina Sofía10:30am The Decision-making Process in Treating a Fungal Attack on a Contemporary Work by the Artist Silvestre Moros
Carmen Estrela Monreal, Mª Pilar Bosch Roig, Laura Silvestre García, Laura Fuster López (Universtat Politècnica de València)11am The Back of Contemporary Paintings: Analysing the Impact of the Accumulation of Gaseous Pollutants on the Resulting Microclimate
Daniel Morales-Martín (Complutense University of Madrid), Mayte Pastor Valls (Servei de Restauració de la Diputació de Castelló) and Alicia Sánchez Ortiz (Complutense University of Madrid)11:30am Coffee break
12:15pm The Restoration Process on a Ceramic Mural by Arcadio Blasco from the Artistic Heritage of the Autonomous University of Madrid
Joaquín Barrio Martín, Amaia Aldazabal, Marian Díaz, Susana López Ginestal (the Service of Conservation, Restoration and Scientific Studies of Archaeological Heritage - SECYR, Autonomous University of Madrid)12:45pm Multispectral 3D Digitisation Robot
Daniel Vazquez-Moliní, Francisco Luna García, Izan Morón Herrero and Antonio Álvarez Fernández-Balbuena (Complutense University of Madrid), Antonio J. Benítez (Carlos III University of Madrid), David Alonso Urbano (University of Design, Innovation and Technology), Jorge García Gómez-Tejedor (head of the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Restoration) Humberto Durán Roque (HDURAN.com)1:15pm Instituto Inhotim de Brasil: The Challenges of Exhibition and Conservation in the Largest Open-air Contemporary Art Museum in Latin America in the Heart of Brazil
Presentation and talk with Bruna Oliveira, Elaine Matos, Carlos Soares, Paulo Rodrigues, Thiago de Pinho Botelho, Álisson Valentim and Alex Maciel (Instituto Inhotim). Moderated by: Arianne Vanrell Vellosillo (Museo Reina Sofía)2pm Break
4pm Documentation and Appraising the Sugoi Zirkoa Collective. Memory of the Contemporary Circus
Rosalina Nespral, a conservator and restorer of cultural heritage, specialised in contemporary art4:30pm Consolidation Proposal for Matte Pictorial Surfaces
Iris Hernández Altarejos, Julia Osca Pons, Mª Pilar Soriano Sancho and José Luis Regidor Ros (Universtat Politècnica de València)5pm Recovering Photographs after the Flood: the Archive of Photographer Bob Wolfenson
Juliana Bittencourt Bovolenta, Leandro Melo, Fernanda Cicero de Sá, Talita Rennó Bruno, independent photograph conservators5:30pm Juan Manuel Sánchez Ríos and His Ceramic Mural in Plaza de la Remonta in Tetuán (Madrid). Vindicating the Origins of a District and a Conservation and Restoration Proposal
Dulce Galán Herrador, who holds a degree in Cultural Heritage Conservation and Restoration6pm Conclusion
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Friday, 8 March 2024
10am Joan Miró’s Creative Process in his Paintings: Underlying Drawings and Re-used Works
Elisabet Serrat (Joan Miró Foundation, Barcelona), Javier Becerra Luna (Pablo de Olavide University, Seville) and Anna Vilà Espuña (“La Caixa” Foundation, Barcelona)10:30am The Study of and Intervention with Polystyrene Resin on the Contemporary Work La medalla de la madre (Mother’s Necklace, 1978), by José Luis Zumeta
Eva Luna Ezkurra León, Erika Tarilonte, Enara Artetxe Sánchez, José Luis Larrañaga Odriozola, Ilaria Constantini (University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea)11am Evaluation as a Key Tool in Conserving Documentary and Museum Holdings
Pedro García Adán (Museo Reina Sofía)11:30am Coffee Break
12:15pm Memory and the Work of Time
Gabriella Locci and Dario Piludu (Casa Falconieri, Italy)12:45pm A 1970 Work by Enric Pladevall-Vila Using Rubber Material
Natalia Portabella Macchi, an artwork conservator and restorer1:15pm Evaluating Systems to Protect Corten Steel Sculptures: Chromatic Alteration and its Role in the Opinion of the Artist and Conservator-Restorer
Sara de Miguel and Emilio Cano (the National Centre for Metallurgical Research - CENIM), Silvia García Fernández-Villa (Complutense University of Madrid)1:45pm Final Note and Conclusion
25th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, 2024. Pablo Picasso, Bust of a Young Woman (detail), 1906. © Sucesión Pablo Picasso, VEGAP, Madrid, 2023
Held on 07, 08 Mar 2024
The 25th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation-Restoration, with the sponsorship of the MAPFRE Foundation, is held on 7 and 8 March 2024. This international encounter sets out to share and debate experience and research, open new channels of study and reflect on conservation and the professional practice of restorers.
Two attendance formats are available for the conference:
- In-person: this attendance format costs 20 euros and includes in-person attendance on both days, coffee during the scheduled breaks, an attendance certificate (subject to attendance on both days) and free access to the Museo Reina Sofía on 7 and 8 March 2024.
- Online platform: this format is free of charge but does not include either an attendance certificate or free access to the Museo Reina Sofía on 7 and 8 March 2024. Those who have registered will receive a link to the online platform on 6 March 2024 to follow the live broadcast of the conference.
Over the course of the conference, speakers will give twenty-minute presentations, followed by five-minute Q&As.
Sponsor
The Mapfre FoundationSubmitting proposals (closed)
The deadline for presenting proposals ends on 15 October 2023. 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).
- CV and contact details.
Proposals may be submitted in Spanish and English and will be evaluated by a Scientific Committee, which will select the submissions to be presented during these conferences 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.
Más actividades
Rethinking Guernica
Monday and Sunday - Check times
This guided tour activates the microsite Rethinking Guernica, a research project developed by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Collections Area, Conservation and Restoration Department and the Digital Projects Area of the Editorial Activities Department, assembling around 2,000 documents, interviews and counter-archives related to Pablo Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937).
The visit sets out an in-situ dialogue between the works hung around the painting and a selection of key documents, selected by the Museo’s Education Team and essential to gaining an idea of the picture’s historical background. Therefore, the tour looks to contribute to activating critical thought around this iconic and perpetually represented work and seeks to foster an approach which refreshes our gaze before the painting, thereby establishing a link with the present. Essentially revisiting to rethink Guernica.
Dear Felix:
Saturdays at 6pm
The immediately recognisable art of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, which is on display, from May to October 2026, in the show Sweet Revenge, moves beyond the transmission of messages laden with poetic evocation, vital or biographical reflection, or even a clear political or ethical positioning. Rather, it seeks an active response by visitors to the exhibition. His work invites engagement with these messages so that, whether delighting, moving or challenging, it still prompts viewers to participate in the dialogue and complete the artistic undertaking with their own actions.
Thus, the guided tour Dear Felix: offers a shared, dialogue-inflected tour through the show, with the aim of collectively thinking and feeling the gestures the artist’s work puts forward. Ostensibly simple actions such as crossing through a beaded curtain to take a sweet and eat it, taking a poster from a stack of paper or simply observing a billboard closely, all contain ways of understanding life, loss, love, injustice or the passing — never linear — of time. The tour’s ultimate aim is not to set meanings or create an overload of interpretations of the work, nor does it seek to crystallise an image of the artist and his life in a response to questions which are not there. It looks instead to provide a space to open shared meaning in these apparently simple objects and to attempt a possible correspondence of return from the here and now. A lumbering attempt at responding which starts with a simple Dear Felix:
1926–2026: One Hundred Years of the Lyceum Club Femenino
Thursday, 2 July 2026
The Lyceum Club Femenino (Lyceum Women’s Club) was established in Madrid in 1926, constituting a space which opened new pathways for women to participate in Spain’s intellectual, artistic and political life in the first third of the twentieth century, and for figures such as designer Victorina Durán, pedagogue María de Maeztu, lawyer and politician Victoria Kent and artist Ángeles Santos, to name but a few. To mark the Madrid Club’s one hundredth anniversary, this research symposium examines its role as a key place for studying women’s and feminist culture in Spain’s Silver Age by analysing and vindicating the different agencies, trajectories and cultural projects that structured the space.
By way of three lectures and two round-table discussions, the symposium sets forth a journey through the Lyceum Club Femenino and the cultural context from which it emerged, from its standing as a pioneering institution to the study of cultural material from the period and the process of constructing the figure of the “modern woman”. These talks and discussions look to shed light on how new ways of thinking, creating and occupying public space were shaped, expanding the gaze on cultural, educational and social networks linked to the Lyceum — as much concerning its ties with other intellectual and artistic circles as the continuity and transformation of these networks during Republican exile. Finally, the symposium features three artistic interventions conceived to recover the artistic legacy of this space in Madrid.
The Museo Reina Sofia joins the Ministry of Culture’s cultural programme focused on the centenary of the Lyceum Club Femenino via these sessions, co-organised with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
Robert Capa
Friday, 26 June 2026 – 6pm
This international encounter centred on the figure of Robert Capa (Budapest, 1913 — Thai Binh, Vietnam, 1954), one of photojournalism’s pre-eminent figures, is held within the framework of the government initiative Spain and Freedom. Fifty Years and in conjunction with a cluster of three locations — the building on number 10 Calle Peironcely, the Plaza del Fotógrafo Robert Capa and the San Carlos Borromeo Parish in Vallecas — declared as a Place of Democratic Memory.
The emblematic photo Robert Capa took in 1936 of this area of Republican Madrid, featuring anonymous children talking in front of a bullet-riddled building attacked by Nazi-fascist air forces, has, in recent years, become a catalyst for impassioned collective action vindicating memory and denouncing the horrors and brutality of wars, past and present.
Within this context, representatives from cultural and academic spheres and civil society organisations from Germany, the USA and Spain discuss the legacy of Capa and photojournalism in European democratic memory, exploring in greater depth two citizen initiatives constructed by Europe from its shared memory: #SalvaPeironcely10 (#SavePeironcely10), in Entrevías (Puente de Vallecas), and the Capa Haus Initiative in the Lindenau neighbourhood of Leipzig, both united by the protection and conservation of historical heritage and by the defence of peace.
The round-table discussion features the participation of Cynthia Young, Juan Miguel Sánchez Vigil, Ulf-Dietrich Brumann and José María Uría Fernández and is moderated by Myriam Soto Lucas. Carmina Gustrán Loscos, the commissioner of Spain and Freedom. Fifty Years, will also join the discussion.
equipoMotor
Jueves alternos, 23 de octubre, 2025 - 11 de junio, 2026 - 17:30 h
El programa equipoMotor regresa en su edición 25-26 con un aire espectral y mutante para lanzar la pregunta: ¿y si el Museo fuera «un poco más Frankenstein»? Inspirándose en dicho monstruo y en todas aquellas criaturas que desafían la norma desde los márgenes, el proyecto de mediación cultural Galaxxia diseña y acompaña una edición incisiva, intergeneracional y descentralizadora, donde saberes invisibilizados, cuerpos raros y deseos molestos se entrelazan para generar nuevas formas de imaginación crítica y radical. En los sótanos y corredores del Museo —un particular laboratorio— las dudas no se esconden: son materia prima.
Así, para este curso el equipoMotor convoca a personas de todas las edades que hayan participado en ediciones anteriores de los distintos equipos del Área de Educación a recorrer el Museo como quien manipula un cuerpo abierto: descoyuntando algunas de sus categorías teóricas y artísticas —la necropolítica, lo crip-cuir, la lucha de clases, las políticas del malestar, la decolonialidad, la temporalidad cuir, la descentralización institucional o el feísmo— para articular un relato díscolo, remendado y palpitante.
El programa se estructura en bloques temáticos sobre lo freak como metodología, el trabajo cultural, la intergeneracionalidad y la diversidad territorial. Cada bloque a su vez se despliega en sesiones que combinan disparadores teóricos y estéticos, visitas a exposiciones y espacios liminales del Museo, talleres artísticos con artistas, ejercicios de curaduría audiovisual colectiva y de relatoría radiofónica, así como instancias de activación pública, mediante proyecciones de cine experimental y coloquios compartidos con el público, en complicidad con el archivo Hamaca y el Área de Cine y Nuevos Medios del Museo.
De este modo, la presente edición incorpora una particularidad: el grupo de participantes irá transformándose en un «colectivo curatorial audiovisual temporalmente autónomo», con capacidad de incidir en la programación del Museo y de abrir la conversación de equipoMotor al público general, cuestionando y expandiendo así los límites entre las cabezas que deciden, las manos que producen y los cuerpos y presencias que habitan la institución. Las personas seleccionadas en la modalidad oyente serán invitadas a las proyecciones públicas, así como a otras activaciones y momentos de apertura del equipoMotor.
Frente al relato de un museo homogéneo, pulcro y lineal, apostamos por un Museo disidente, contradictorio y lleno de vida residual. Un Museo que no tema hacerse preguntas incómodas ni mostrar sus cicatrices. equipoMotor. Un poco más Frankenstein no busca repensar el cuerpo de la institución, sino habitarlo en sus desgarros, tal como es: híbrido, inacabado, infecto, fantasmagórico… y cargado de esporas y chispas por venir.