Behind the scenes at MOCA: art conservation

By Ines Min

Staff reporter

There's more to this art than meets the eye. Decades-old multimedia paintings, installations of delicate wire and metal and retro cleaning supplies dot the vast landscape of the gallery. What appears to be a simple exhibition is in fact also the meticulous work of art conservators ― and the guardians of these classics.

In collaboration with the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), an exhibition celebrating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between Spain and Korea kicks off Tuesday at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea (MOCA), with an impressive collection of works by 63 Spanish and international artists. The museum invited the press for a behind-the-scenes look at the installation process, a glance at how the magic of aesthetics is recreated.

A look past the curtain

The space in the exhibition hall of MOCA Korea rings with the echoes of footsteps and blurred speech. ``Creu I R'' (1975), a famous work by Catalan painter Antoni Tapies, can be seen among an array of others, dutifully lined up and leaning against white walls. But these original contemporary items were not simply thrown into storage, shakily shipped and hammered onto the walls of its destination. Xavier Rossell, one of the Spanish museum's two on-staff conservators, stuck with the work for its entire journey.

``When the works arrived here in Korea, we opened the crates and checked every work,'' Rossell, who has been a conservator at MACBA for 15 years, told The Korea Times in an interview. The traveling conservator has worked with MOCA's own conservation team for the process. ``We need to know everything is okay and that nothing has been damaged.''

Though the words ``art conservation'' may bring to mind labs filled to the brim with tools, cotton swabs and white coats, contemporary conservation is challenging in a different sense: A variety of mediums, traveling exhibitions and large-scale works must now be contended with.

``Because it's contemporary art, it's sort of human art, it's living,'' Rossell said. ``We have problems of life being very fast and problems with works that use machines.''

A result of the rapid progressions in technology, the variety of mediums available to artists today make for more exerting conservation techniques ― from creating multiple copies of a film, to maintaining copies of a variety of formats that won't be rendered obsolete tomorrow.

And for modern art that integrates any number of items (Rossell offered the example of a refrigerator being used in an installation): ``You know a lot, but you know nothing, and you need specialists for everything.''

He explained further: ``You need to know a lot of from each discipline…maybe if you need something very specific, you might go to a paper conservator or painting conservator'' or even to electricians.

Not to mention, classic works have the advantage of being conserved in a new era of modern technology. Because paints have been used for years, conservation methods for pigments have grown vastly sophisticated. As for the new media works today, the technology has yet to catch up to the same level of techniques.

``In contemporary art it is very hard to have big interventions because it's a young art…there is no distance,'' the MACBA conservator said. ``Which is good for Leonadro da Vinci or those kinds of materials, but not for this.''

Not that technology has only brought obstacles. While an artwork's condition was once recorded by hand, now everything is done with a computer program. This contrasting relationship the modern world has on art is what makes conservation exciting, yet difficult for Rossell. Not that he minds.

``I think it'll be very different in the future,'' he said with a mischievous smile. ``Because it's changing so fast; you can choose a medium now, and in two years it might not exist.''

The finished product

Once Rossell's work is complete, visitors can enjoy the immaculate ``The Shadow of Speech ― MACBA Collection,'' which focuses on the concept of language and its significance in culture.

Broken into eight sections, the exhibition starts off with work by Marcel Broodthaers, a Belgian artist who is known for challenging the idea of institution, going so far as to create his own museum to showcase art. Works by the famous Catalonian Joan Brossa, who encouraged the use of visual poetry in literature, will also be on display.

The exhibition traces the importance of language through the stream of society, through political activism, media, theater and even cinema. Other featured artists include painter Antoni Tapies (who later influenced Paul Klee and Joan Miro) and video art pioneer Joan Jonas.

``The Shadow of Speech'' will open Tuesday and run through Oct. 3 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, located in Gwacheon. The museum is a shuttle bus-ride away from exit 4 of Grand Seoul Park Station on subway line 4. Tickets cost 5,000 won; English tours are available on the weekends at 2 p.m. For more information, visit www.moca.go.kr.