To celebrate International Museum Day, CA2M has come up with a new way of activating its collection and making it more widely accessible.
“ASSOCIATED MAKING. ASSEMBLY KIT OF PIECES FROM THE CA2M COLLECTION” is a curatorial programme by Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo that views the exhibition as an open, imaginative and surprising reflection in which artists, institutions and audiences can collectively rethink our contemporaneity.
On 2 July 1970, on a public stage in Frankfurt the artist VALIE EXPORT tattooed herself with a garter, a radical transgression of gender stereotypes—given that at the time tattoos were seen as the exclusive purview of men, especially convicts and sailors—but also a case of taking the use of her own body to the extreme, as the artistic action that became a permanent part of her body that would last her whole life long.
There is a signature feature to Hannah Collins’s photos of urban horizons: the sky is always tinted with a strange colour. Like the images over the credits of an imaginary film, this photo captures the feeling that a particular place—whether through premeditated cultural references or a subjective impression—produced in the artist at a certain point in time.
This fountain is made through a twofold transformation of materials sourced from nature. Firstly, marble—the material par excellence of classical sculpture—is a previously cut piece which was perhaps originally destined for industrial use.
The Premio Apertura prize – awarded by the Region of Madrid – aims to recognise the quality of one or more artists who participate in the annual editions of APERTURA. This award encompasses different disciplines that make up the visual arts and artists of age using any artistic technique can enter.
This autumn's cinema series is a celebration of the audio-visual media that is part of the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum’s public heritage. Our collections feature many pieces of video art encompassing the last decades of audio-visual history, both nationally and internationally. In recent years, we have also decided to make a strong commitment to promoting experimental and exhibition cinema, as we consider the moving image to be a fundamental heritage in present-day culture and, above all, because it is important to have a museum record of the great moment that film is currently experiencing in Madrid.
Dialectal Cinema is an ideal accompaniment to Dialecto CA2M. It will allow us to watch some of the most interesting films acquired in recent years in their authors’ own voices. In other words, it will follow the traditional cinema and colloquium format, but with exceptional artists.
Non-commercial cinema is a fundamental element for the opening of the CA2M Collection. Luis López Carrasco (Murcia, 1981) will open the cycle with The Future (2013), a film of unique generational importance. This was his first big hit before the acclaimed The Year of Discovery (2020). Another documentary film, Everyone likes bananas, brings Rubén H. Bermúdez (Móstoles, 1981) back to our museum, collectively addressing the day-to-day experience of blackness in Spain as part of an impressive community exercise. The Science fiction category will be represented by Ion de Sosa (San Sebastian, 1981), who adapted Philip K. Dick's Androids Dream of Electric Sheep into a dystopian Benidorm during low season.
Lois Patiño (Vigo, 1983) has been a leading voice in the field of exhibition cinema, a less narrative format that acts as a loop for exhibition spaces, over the last decade. In Shady Mountain, the viewpoint and light reveal the geological formation as a place of coexistence, a sublime place to live. Films by Alex Reynolds (Bilbao, 1978) defy conventional narrative by displaying the affective structures that glue viewers to the screen.
In the final session can chat with three quite different video artists. Ana Esteve (Agres, 1986) discusses cinema itself and its conventions in her films. In The Magic Screen she turns a city built on the East Coast of Spain, the Levante, which is still a potential dream, into an archaeological site. Cristina Garrido (Madrid, 1986) uses a cliché promotional documentary to explain a new kind of art. This film is shown at art fair stands and Garrido herself considers it to be another artistic genre altogether: just like painting, the art featured at the fair pavilion. Finally, Mar Reykjavik (Sagunto, 1995) reflects on the creation of identity through new technologies and the virality of networks. My body, my rules analyses the potential relationships and escapes resulting from viral challenges.
In addition to these dates, and for the duration of the CA2M Dialect exhibition, all the video pieces from the CA2M Collection and the ARCO Foundation Collection will be available for viewing in a cinema on the second floor of the museum. There, visitors can choose which piece they want to watch and enjoy the possibilities that the cinematographic medium offers for current artistic expression.
This autumn's cinema series is a celebration of the audio-visual media that is part of the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo Museum’s public heritage. Our collections feature many pieces of video art encompassing the last decades of audio-visual history, both nationally and internationally.
Fotograma de El Futuro, Luis López Carrasco, 2014.
This metal dinosaur is a ‘part’ of a larger group of artworks made from pieces of playground furniture from the 1970s, made in collaboration with the Mamoan family business in the city of Bello Horizonte in Brazil, which continues using the same designs from decades ago.
REASON FOR INTERVENTION
The decision to restore this work was taken following an application for the loan of the work received from Centre Pompidou in Paris for the retrospective exhibition CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. FAIRE SON TEMPS (13 November 2019 - 16 March 2020). The installation comprises a total of 360 elements in different materials and formats. The primary reason for this intervention was the notable deterioration produced by the corrosion of the metallic elements of the work. The very thin tinplate used for the boxes had reacted to the humidity, giving rise to corrosion which also affected the contents inside the boxes.
STATE OF CONSERVATION
The state of conservation of the work is below optimum both from an aesthetic as well as a structural viewpoint due to the advance state of oxidation of the boxes. The elements in the installation are as follows:
336 metal boxes
Affected by active oxidation, remains of adhesive, small shards of metal, stains, erosion, deformations and surface dirt.
The materials contained inside the boxes:
_ Fabric: the corrosion of the boxes has affected the inside and impregnated the fabrics and stained them with rust. Abundant dirt, deformations, breakages, signs of decomposition and bio-deterioration.
_ Cellulose support: general dirt, stains produced by damp and corrosion of metal. Oxidation of the material, yellowing, acidity, fragility. Biological contamination. Damage caused by incorrect storage such as deformation, creases, folds, breakage, small losses, exfoliation of corners. Traces of different kinds of adhesive tape, namely: sellotape, masking tape, gummed paper. Alterations of dyes: fading, colour bleeding.
_ Photographs: exfoliation in corners. Folds and creases. Corrugation, deformations, abrasions, inscriptions and stains.
12 boxes with photos with metal mesh
Montage of black and white photographs adhered to cardboard with adhesive, in turn adhered inside the box at six points with double-sided tape.
Dust and dirt had accumulated on the photographs as well as the boxes and metal mesh. The meshes and the boxes have active points of oxidation and some meshes have small breakages, erosion, deformations and traces of adhesive tapes. The wires holding the meshes are oxidized with some loss or breakage.
12 flexo-type lamps
Defective wiring, erosion caused by handling, small loss of paint, traces of adhesives, and general dirt.
TREATMENT UNDERTAKEN
Description of the different processes according to material:
Metal
Hand cleaning of all the boxes using steel wool of varying grades depending on the layer to be removed (000 and 0000), and a mixture of acetic acid (70%) with linseed oil (10%) and 96º alcohol (20%).
Brass brushes were used in areas with greater amounts of rust.
The remains of labels were removed with cotton swabs and 100% acetone dissolvent, and then finished mechanically with scalpels.
Treatment to protect the boxes in order to prevent oxidation with a mixture of 2% Paraloid B72 resin in acetone applied by brush.
Revision of system for mounting the 12 metallic meshes. Removal of rusted wires and replacement by stainless steel wires.
Fabric
Gentle micro-vacuuming and application of a biocidal treatment in spray: biotin in distilled water (1/3).
Followed by immersion in a mixture of 50% sodium bicarbonate and citric acid in distilled water, and the application of a specific reductive bleaching agent with final rinsing. Drying with driers and weights.
Cellulose support
Surface cleaning with Japanese brushes, elimination of deformations, damp control and weights, tears sutured with methyl-cellulose and Japanese paper. Dry cleaning with make-up sponges and isolated treatment of stains.
Photographs
Gentle vacuuming and Japanese brushes.
Flexo lamps
Surface cleaning, placement of clamps and replacement of bulbs with LEDs.
Preventive conservation rules applied, coding of all pieces and creation of new more appropriate packaging.
Finally, authorization and acceptance on behalf of the artist was sought at all times for the intervention undertaken, agreeing on the maintenance or conservation of the original aesthetic appearance and a respect for the material integrity of the work.
The decision to restore this work was taken following an application for the loan of the work received from Centre Pompidou in Paris for the retrospective exhibition CHRISTIAN BOLTANSKI. FAIRE SON TEMPS (13 November 2019 - 16 March 2020). The installation comprises a total of 360 elements in different materials and formats.
REASON FOR INTERVENTION
The decision to restore this work was taken following an application for the loan of the work for Diccionario incompleto de la fotografía española. CA2M Collection, an upcoming exhibition at Centro Oscar Niemeyer in Avilés and the poor state of conservation of the photocollage.
STATE OF CONSERVATION
This piece is in the middle of the process of restoration, currently interrupted due to the state of emergency.
The montage of the photocollage was being changed due to the inadequate materials for a correct conservation of the work, given that the back of the MDF board and the adhesives used to support the work were transmitting acidity to the original elements.
TREATMENT UNDERTAKEN
After first dismounting the work, we proceeded to eliminate all elements harmful for its correct conservation, although it was impossible to remove the cardboard on which the photos were adhered, as this was the original montage by the artist.
Remains of adhesive from sellotape and double-sided tape were removed with the aid of a hot air gun and various kinds of erasers.
Afterwards the front surface of the photographs was cleaned, eliminating fingerprints and any remains of adhesive as far as possible.
The work was then mounted again, adhering the photos lightly and fixing the work as a whole to a passe-partout folder with strips of Japanese paper.
The decision to restore this work was taken following an application for the loan of the work for Diccionario incompleto de la fotografía española. CA2M Collection, an upcoming exhibition at Centro Oscar Niemeyer in Avilés and the poor state of conservation of the photocollage.
