26th Contemporary Art Conservation Conference
- Seminars and Lectures
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.
![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)
Más actividades
Aesthetics of Peace and Desertion Tactics
8 OCT 2025,24 JUN 2026
The study group Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion: Prefiguring New Pacifisms and Forms of Transitional Justice proposes a rethinking—through both a theoretical-critical and historical-artistic lens—of the intricate network of concepts and practices operating under the notion of pacifism. A term not without contestation and critical tension, pacifism gathers under its name a multiplicity of practices—from anti-militarism and anti-war movements to non-violence activism—while simultaneously opening urgent debates around violence, justice, reparation, and desertion. Here, pacifism is not conceived as a moral doctrine, but as an active form of ethical and political resistance capable of generating aesthetic languages and new positions of social imagination.
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.
Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion, developed and led by the Museo Reina Sofía’s Studies Management, unfolds through biweekly sessions from October to June. These sessions alternate between theoretical discussions, screenings, work with artworks and archival materials from the Museo’s Collection, reading workshops, and public sessions. The group is structured around sustained methodologies of study, close reading, and collective discussion of thinkers such as Judith Butler, Elsa Dorlin, Juan Albarrán, Rita Segato, Sven Lütticken, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Franco “Bifo” Berardi; historical episodes such as the anti-nuclear and anti-arms race movement in Spain; and the work of artists and activists including Rojava Film Commune, Manuel Correa and the Oficina de Investigación Documental (Office for Documentary Investigation), and Jonas Staal, among other initial cases that will expand as the group progresses.
UP/ROOTING
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 NOV 2025
Museo Reina Sofía and MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) invite applications for the 2025 iteration of the School of Common Knowledge, which will take place from November 11th to 16th in Madrid and Barcelona.
The School of Common Knowledge (SCK) draws on the network, knowledge and experience of L ’Internationale, a confederation of museums, art organizations and universities that strives to reimagine and practice internationalism, solidarity and communality within the cultural field. This year, the SCK program focuses on the contested and dynamic notions of rooting and uprooting in the framework of present —colonial, migrant, situated, and ecological— complexities.
Building on the legacy of the Glossary of Common Knowledge and the current European program Museum of the Commons, the SCK invites participants to reflect on the power of language to shape our understanding of art and society through a co-learning methodology. Its ambition is to be both nomadic and situated, looking at specific cultural and geopolitical situations while exploring their relations and interdependencies with the rest of the world.
In the current context fraught with war and genocide, the criminalization of migration and hyper-identitarianism, concepts such as un/belonging become unstable and in need of collective rethinking:
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?
Departing from these questions, the program consists of a series of visits to situated initiatives (including Museo Situado, Paisanaje and MACBA's Kitchen, to name a few), engagements with the exhibitions and projects on view (Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture from Panafrica), a keynote lecture by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, as well as daily reading and discussion gatherings, editorial harvest sessions, and conviviality moments.
Rethinking Guernica
10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31 OCT, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 29, 30 NOV, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30 DIC 2024,2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31 ENE, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28 FEB, 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 31 MAR, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28 ABR, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31 MAY, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30 JUN, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 31 JUL, 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 28, 29, 30 AGO, 1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29 SEP, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30 OCT 2025
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.
![Francesc Abad, Procés transformació [Proceso transformación, 1972]. Museo Reina Sofía](https://recursos.museoreinasofia.es/styles/small_landscape/public/Actividades/AD05219-009-actividad.jpg.webp)
The (legal) person and the legal form. Chapter I
29 SEP, 2, 6, 9 OCT 2025
As part of the Studies Constellation, the Study Directoship’s annual fellowship, art historian and theorist Sven Lütticken leads the seminar The (Legal) Person and the Legal Form: Theoretical, Artistic, and Activist Commitments to foster dialogue and deepen the hypotheses and questions driving his research project.
This project, titled Unacting Personhood, Deforming Legal Abstraction, explores the dominance of real abstractions—such as exchange value and legal form—over our processes of subjectivation, and asks how artistic practices can open up alternative ways of representing or performing the subject and their legal condition in the contemporary world.
The seminar consists of eight two-hour sessions, divided into three chapters throughout the academic year. While conceived as non-public spaces for discussion and collective work, these sessions complement, nourish, and amplify the public program of the Studies Constellation.
This first chapter of the seminar, composed of four sessions, serves as an introduction to the fundamental issues of the research concerning theoretical, artistic, and activist engagements with the legal form. It includes four sessions dedicated respectively to: the legal form, through the work of French jurist, philosopher, and lawyer Bernard Edelman, with particular attention to his Marxist theory of photography (translated into German by Harun Farocki); the (legal) person, via contributions from Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito, academic, social justice activist, and writer Radha D’Souza, and visual artist Jonas Staal; land, through the work of researcher Brenna Bhandar—specialist in the colonial foundations of modern law and the notion of property—and artist, filmmaker, and researcher Marwa Arsanios; and international law, through the work of British writer China Miéville.
Through these and other readings, case study analyses, and collective discussions, the seminar aims to open a space for critical reflection on the ways in which the law—both juridical form and legal form—is performed and exceeded by artistic and activist practices, as well as by theoretical and political approaches that challenge its foundations and contemporary projections.