26th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
Held on 03, 04 Mar 2025
The 26th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference, organised by the Museo Reina Sofía, with the sponsorship of the MAPFRE Foundation, is held on 3 and 4 March 2025. 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 this edition of the conference:
- In-person: this format costs 25 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 Monday, 3, and Wednesday, 5 March 2025.
- Online platform: this format is free of charge but does not include either an attendance certificate or admission to visit the Museo Reina Sofía. Those who have registered will receive a link to the online platform on 28 February 2025 to follow the live stream of the conference.
At the end of each intervention, participants can raise questions in both formats (in-person and online platform).
Organised by
Museo Reina Sofía
Sponsor
The Mapfre FoundationCollaboration
illycaffèMayte Ortega, Department of Conservation-Restoration, Museo Reina Sofía
jornada.conservacion@museoreinasofia.es / Tel. +34 91 774 10 00 Ext. 289647
Programme
Monday, 3 March 2025
09:30am Opening and Presentation
Manuel Segade (director of the Museo Reina Sofía), Jorge García Gómez-Tejedor (head of the Museo Reina Sofía’s Department of Conservation-Restoration), Mayte Ortega (coordinator of the 26th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference) and María Martínez Cid (exhibitions manager at MAPFRE Foundation)
09:45am Intervention by Ana Laborde Marqueze, Winner of the 2024 National Award for the Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage
10:00am Tri-Uni-Corn (1981), by Antoni Miralda: uTri-Uni-Corn (1981), by Antoni Miralda: The Balance between Conservation Criteria and the Artist’s Decisions
Paula Ercilla Orbañanos (Museo Reina Sofía), Gema Grueso, Cristina López and Vanessa Magali Truchado (C·ART·A Conservación de Arte Actual)
—Presented by: Paula Ercilla Orbañanos
11:00am Restoration and the Museum Project of Twenty-Seven Paperboards for Picasso Tapestries
Reyes Jiménez (independent conservator-restorer) and Aina Vila and Núria Casademunt (Teixell)
—Presented by: Aina Vila and Reyes Jiménez
11:30am Coffee break
12:15pm BISS-Innovation and Best Practice for International Standards On Sculpture Study And Management
Arianne Vanrell and Mayte Ortega (Museo Reina Sofía)
12:30pm The Conservation and Restoration of the Work of José Luis Gómez Perales, a Master of Geometric Abstraction in Spain
Nuria Fuentes (Complutense University of Madrid)
1:00pm Study for the Application of Absorbents to Conserve Filmoteca Española’s NO-DO Collection
Marta Castellano Fuentes (Filmoteca Española), Sonia Santos Gómez (Complutense University of Madrid) and Patricia Uceda Gil (Filmoteca Española)
—Presented by: Marta Castellano Fuentes
1:30pm Treatment to Recover and Digitise Film Material in a State of Nitrate Decomposition
Patricia Uceda Gil, Paloma Sierra Capel, Blanca Rubio Navarro, Pablo Redondo Suárez and Iker Velasco Salgado (Filmoteca Española)
—Presented by: Blanca Rubio and Paloma Sierra
2pm Lunch break
3:45pm An Approach to Teaching Problems in Relation to Conserving Plastics: The Work of Zoe Leonard for Developing Prototypes
Carmen Moral Ruiz (University of Seville) y Laura Luque Rodrigo (University of Jaén)
—Presented by: Carmen Moral Ruiz
4:15pm The Restoration of Two Sculptures by Artist Giovanni Tamburelli: Rusting as a Core Part of the Creative Process
Camila Restrepo (conservator-restorer)
4:45 h Ana Vieira: Installation manuals
Antonia Gaeta (curator), Astrid Suzano (architect and co-founder and CEO of Passa Ao Futuro) and Sofia Gomes (Researcher and manager of the Collection at Museu de Arte Contemporânea Amando Martins, Lisbon, Portugal)
—Presented by: Sofia Gomes
5:15pm Coffee Break
5:15pm Studio Under Mud: Reflections and Learning from the Impact of the DANA Floods on Juan Olivares’s Paintings
Silvia García Fernández-Villa (Complutense University of Madrid) and Juan Olivares (artist)
6:00pm Do Not Discard. Recovering Home Cinema after the DANA Floods in Valencia
Salvador Vivancos, Laura García, Laura Oliver and Clara Sánchez-Dehesa (La red del cine doméstico)
—Presented by: Laura Oliver and Clara Sánchez-Dehesa
6:45pm The Project Sorkuntzatik-Kontserbaziora/From Creation to Conservation in Gordailua, Gipuzkoa’s Heritage Collection Centre
Irene Cárdaba (Gipuzkoa’s Heritage Collection Centre) and Itziar Gutiérrez Fernández (art historian)
—Presented by: Irene Cárdaba
7:15pm Challenges During the Documentation Process of Escultura dentro da Floresta (1968-1969), by Alberto Carneiro
Inês Tavares (MA from the School of Arts, Universidade Católica Portuguesa de Oporto, Portugal) and Joana Cristina Moreira Teixeira (Research Center for Science and Technology of the Arts CITAR and School of Arts, Universidade Católica Portuguesa de Oporto)
—Presented by Inês Tavares
Presentation in English
7:45pm Conclusion
Tuesday, 4 March 2025
9:30am Juan Gris: Between Forms and Colours. An Approach to His Composition Method
Alicia García González (conservator-restorer) and Humberto Durán Roque (Hduran Conservation-Restoration)
—Presented by: Alicia García González
10:00am Intervention on an Arte Povera Work by Artist Jannis Kounellis. Textile Reinforcement in Burlap Sacks
Aitziber Velasco
—Presented by: Miren Oteros (UPV-EHU) and Aitziber Velasco (Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa)
10:30am h Using a Cutting Plotter: Applications in Conserving and Restoring Documents
Ludivine Leroy-Banti (National Archives of France) and Manon Van Hooydonck (Provincial Archives of Ille-et-Vilaine, France)
— Online presentation in English
11am Technological Obsolescence in Contemporary Art: Conservation and Restoration Intervention on the Artwork Radiologias (1979), by Silvestre Pestana
Francisca Carneiro de Brito de Lafuente (School of Arts, Universidad Católica Portuguesa de Oporto, Portugal) and Joana Cristina Moreira (the CITAR Research Centre for Science and Technology in the Arts and the School of Arts, Universidad Católica Portuguesa de Oporto, Portugal)
—Presented by: Francisca Carneiro de Brito de Lafuente
Presentation in English
11:30am Coffee break
12:15pm Strategies of Production and Conservation Applied to Ephemeral Installations Built with Soil: Delcy Morelos’s Profundis in CAAC
Ana Posada Baraldés and Manuel Cid Medrano (artists and researchers from the Fine Arts Department at the University of Seville), Alice Borsani (graduate in the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the University of Seville), José Carlos Roldán Saborido (conservator-restorer from the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo) and María Arjonilla Álvarez (professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts’ Painting Department at the University of Seville)
—Presented by: Ana Posada Baraldés, Manuel Cid Medrano and Alice Borsani
12:45pm Predictive Conservation and New Technologies as a Tool in the Conservation and Restoration of Contemporary Art
André Maragno (conservator-restorer of contemporary art, Brazil)
—Online presentation in English
1:15pm The Model of the Yhyakh Festival of Sakha by Fedor Markov: Navigating the Conservation of an Ethno-Contemporary work
Alicia de la Serna (British Museum, London)
1:45pm Final Note and Conclusion
Submitting proposals (closed)
The deadline for presenting proposals ends on 13 October 2024. 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
International Museum Day 2026 with Radio 3
22 MAY 2026
On Friday, 22 May 2026 the Museo Reina Sofía celebrates International Museum Day by way of a vibrant music programme conducted by Radio 3.
From 9am to 11pm, the Museo’s Nouvel Courtyard will host the live broadcast of Radio 3’s day-long programme —also available on a video streaming on the Radio3 website and app, on RTVEPlay and on the Museo’s social media accounts. The programme comprises more than twenty live acts, including artists such as Carlangas, Shego, Soleá Morente, Kokoshca, La Tania, La Pegatina, Pipiolas, Ángel Stanich, Triángulo de Amor Bizarro and Zahara, and many others.
With this programme the Museo Reina Sofía concludes its celebration of International Museum Day, which takes place on Monday, 18 May. Both on 18 May, from 10am to 9pm, and 22 May admission to the Museo will be free of charge.
Institutional Decentralisation
Thursday, 21 May 2026 – 5:30pm
This series is organised by equipoMotor, a group of teenagers, young people and older people who have participated in the Museo Reina Sofía’s previous community education projects, and is structured around four themed blocks that pivot on the monstrous.
This fourth and final session centres on films that take the museum away from its axis and make it gaze from the edges. Pieces that work with that which is normally left out: peripheral territories, unpolished aesthetics, clumsy gestures full of intent. Instead of possessing an institutional lustre, here they are rough, precarious and strange in appearance, legitimate forms of making and showing culture. The idea is to think about what happens when central authority is displaced, when the ugly and the uncomfortable are not hidden, when they are recognised as part of the commons. Film that does not seek to be to one’s liking, but to open space and allow other ways of seeing and inhabiting the museum to enter stage.
Gerardo Mosquera: Island Thinker, Global Curator
19 MAY 2026
This encounter pays homage to Gerardo Mosquera (Havana, 1945), a pre-eminent curator, an essayist who has been part of key debates on decolonisation and the drifts of globalisation, a communicator and, primarily, an art critic who has managed to radically situate discourses and practices, while still taking on risks and perpetually upholding committed ethical positions.
Mosquera is one of the foremost curators internationally and was involved with the Havana Biennial from its foundation in 1984 to 1989, as well as curating pivotal shows in museums and art centres around the globe. Notable among his curatorial work is as adjunct curator at the New Museum in New York (1995–2009), the Liverpool Biennial (2006) and the exhibition It’s Not Just What You See. Perverting Minimalism (Museo Reina Sofía, 2000).
This round-table discussion, which features the participation of Gerardo Mosquerahimself and an ensemble of art critics, thinkers and artists, for instance Fernando Castro Flórez, Diana Cuéllar, Lillebit Fadraga and René Francisco Rodríguez, will approach the multifaceted and extremely fertile work of Mosquera as a renowned master curator.
Miguel Falomir, Director of the Museo Nacional del Prado, in Conversation with Museo Reina Sofía Director Manuel Segade
18 MAY 2026
Museo del Prado and Museo Reina Sofía directors, Miguel Falomir and Manuel Segade, respectively,engage in conversation on Monday, 18 May in the Museo Reina Sofía’s Auditorium 400, in conjunction with International Museum Day 2026, the theme of which is “Museums Uniting a Dividing World”. The discussion, moderated by journalist and poet Antonio Lucas, will see the two heads of these major cultural institutions share their reflections on the role they play in today’s society.
In addition to addressing the management of art, the conversation seeks to explore in greater depth museums’ potential as meeting points to face today’s social tensions, thereby fulfilling the international mandate of this year’s edition.
The activity will be live-streamed and is available at this link.
Collection. Contemporary Art: 1975–Present
Miércoles 13 de mayo, 2026 - 19:00 h
In this lecture, Museo Reina Sofía director Manuel Segade outlines the key readings of the new presentation of the Collection on Floor 4 of the Sabatini Building. This new arrangement is framed inside an ambitious rehang that harnesses the uses of the Museo’s architecture, in a plan that will continue in 2027 with the opening of Floor 3 in the same building, culminating with Floor 2 in 2028.
The new rehang of the Collections, unveiled on 16 February 2026, sets forth a journey through contemporary art history over the past fifty years in Spain. Rather than an unambiguous narrative, the floor recounts the same period — from the Transition to democracy in Spain to the present — in three different ways, starting back at the 1970s time and again.
The exhibition route gets under way with a prologue that travels through the affections, material culture and institutionalism of the Spanish Transition, serving as a starting point for the three routes that follow. The first, A History of Affect in Contemporary Art, advances from affective systems in artmaking linked to the second wave of feminism, arriving at grief as a tool to interpret new realities. The second route, The Powers of Fiction: Sculpture, New Materialisms, and Relational Aesthetics, is conceived as a sculpture gallery in which the artworks engage with the public, focusing on the performance side of the discipline. This route shows, among other aspects, how Spanish sculpture has gained significant international visibility since the 1980s, with women artists playing a key role in this display. The third route, A New Framework. The Institution, the Market, and the Art that Transcends Both, zooms in on the origins of the Museo and its role in the process of art’s institutionalisation in Spain. In May 1986 the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía opened, occupying the first and second floors of the former hospital: the forty years that have elapsed since then enable a re-evaluation of the effects of the Museo on Spanish art and art on the institution.
This talk strengthens the goal of socially integrating the narratives produced by the Museo at a time when the Collections are under permanent review.