10 Contemporary art

10

Contemporary art

Title/Topic

L’espiral de la llum (The spiral of light)

Author

Josep Guinovart (Barcelona, 1927-2007)

Date/Period

2007

Dimensions

244 × 122 cm

CRBMC Register NO

11077

Coordination Maite Toneu

Restoration

Irene Panadés

Year of restoration

2013

From the house-workshop located in Castelldefels and dated between 1952 and 2007, a set of fourteen works by J. Guinovart were sent to the CRBMC to undergo a conservation-restoration intervention.

State of conservation

Almost all of these large, diverse pieces (collages, paintings, matter painting, etc.), have undergone tasks to reattach the polychrome and some material elements (grains of millet, sand, clay, vegetable fibres, newspaper, wicker, etc.), small cleaning actions, some anoxia and reintegration operations, and preventive conservation actions (protection of the backs).

One of the works which has been restored is L’espiral de la llum (The spiral of light), dated 2007 (the year of his death), which stands out for its peculiar composition and the challenge involved in the intervention.

On wooden plywood, it is painted with acrylics and, like a collage, has strands of straw stuck everywhere, while a large spiral wire cuts across the composition diagonally with fragments of eggshells glued and painted white to highlight its lustre. The work is finished off with the arrangement of wood nailed in the lower right and upper left corners, inside the black area.

The piece’s major problem when it arrived at the CRBMC was the detachment and the poor adhesion to the pictorial layer of

Close-up of the detached eggshells before the restoration some of the materials that Guinovart uses for the collage. Many strands of straw were loose or had already come off, while the spiral (attached to the panel with staples) had separated from the base at certain points and in those movements it had caught on the polychrome, tearing it from the surface. In addition, the upper end of the spiral was deformed (caused by a knock or incorrect handling of the piece).

But the critical part of the intervention lay in the condition of the eggshells. Many had come loose and broken. They hung loose in fragments above the piece, and from the documentation that we received about the work, we could see that some had been lost.

Intervention

Therefore, the intervention consisted of fixing the wire to the pictorial surface and rearranging the deformed end in the original position, following old photographic documentation of the work. As for the loose strands of straw (likely to fall off), they were fixed with a neutral pH polyvinyl acetate mixed with Tylose® in order to increase their viscosity and reversibility. The eggshell fragments were glued with a cyanoacrylate-based adhesive to the wire as shown in old photographs.

After fixing the unstable elements of the work, a mechanical cleaning (front and back) of the accumulations of dust, cobwebs and dead insects (spiders) was carried out on the piece. This mechanical cleaning was done using a micro-vacuum cleaner or flat brush, depending on the area and the risk of material detachment.

Finally, after contacting the painter’s daughter, it was decided that the lost material (eggshells) should be restored as shown in previous photographs of the work. They were replaced with new eggshells (broken in the same way and placed in the same position on the spiral), painted with vinyl water-based paint imitating the brushstroke and tone of the originals. To avoid creating a false historical artefact, the piece was mapped to document the replacements of each restored eggshell.

In short, we consider this intervention to have been an interesting work because it raised the eternal dilemma about the restoration of materials in contemporary art. After consulting with the painter’s daughter, the focus of the intervention was to consider the work as a manifestation of the artist’s intentions in which, if necessary, the message must be updated so that the work continues to communicate what the artist wanted to tell us. However, the documentation of the intervention and the mapping of replaced parts will make it possible to return, if necessary, the work to the same condition it was in when it arrived.

MAPA D’INTERVENCIÓ. REPOSICIÓ DE FRAGMENTS PERDUTS. “ESPIRAL DE LLUM”, NÚM CRBMC 11077

Elements originals

Elements nous

Map showing the positions of the restored eggshells. In blue, the originals placed back on the spiral, and in red, those that were replaced. General view of the work after the restoration

Dismantling of the ceramic mural by Joan Miró and Joan Gardy Artigas at the old IBM building, headquarters of the Department of Education

Title/Topic

Mural for the company IBM

Author

Joan Miró i Ferrà (Barcelona, 1893 - Palma de Mallorca, 1983) / Joan Gardy Artigas (Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, 1938)

Date/Period

1976

Origin

Lobby of the Government of Catalonia’s Department of Education building, Barcelona (Barcelonès county)

Location

National Art Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona (Barcelonès county)

In 1976, Joan Miró and the ceramist Joan Gardy Artigas (son of the ceramist Josep Llorens Artigas, a friend of Miró and his collaborator since 1944) created a ceramic mural, commissioned by the company IBM, which was to be located in the building on Via Augusta in Barcelona, that later became the headquarters of the Department of Education.

This splendid mural, which was located in the lobby of the building, consists of 406 refractory stoneware tiles measuring a total of 2.80 × 8.72 m. The tiles are grouped in thirty regular panels, which made it easy to mount in situ on a metal grid attached to the wall along three lines of rails. Each tile is adhered with epoxy resin on a 19 mm thick plywood board, reinforced on an iron frame, forming eighteen panels of fifteen tiles, 9 of 12 tiles, 2 of 10 and 1 of 8. The tiles in each set have not been grouted with mortar and are not joined together.

All the ceramic work and the design of the structure and composition of the panels was carried out in Joan Gardy’s workshop, as he himself confirmed. Of his painting, the only thing that stands out is the use of yellowcake, a rare pigment, impossible to find now but which was historically used in glass and ceramics. He also told us the story of the drawing covering the whole of the mural, with its striking black line at the bottom. This horizontal line was the product of Miró’s exasperation when he found out about the budget for the mural, contrary to what had been initially agreed, saying that the with that budget he could only do “up to here!”. There are also those who say that, in its original location, that part was hidden and did not need to be painted, and that Miró drew the line to mark the boundary. There is no accounting for taste.

State of conservation

In general, the tiles were stable and contained only surface dirt and widespread sediment on the surface and in the nooks and crannies, typical of this type of ceramic. At certain points they had eroded a little and there were small alterations at some corners, possibly caused during the original assembly. All the ceramic elements were in good condition, although there was a broken tile, but no loss of support. The panels were stable and the tiles held firmly in place, although the adhesive epoxy resin had a yellowish tone due to ageing.

Intervention

The dismantling process took a week. The quality of the assembly ensured that the separations of the panels could not be seen, something which only became clear during the dismantling. Being able to consult with Joan Gardy Artigas throughout the process was crucial in determining the methodology required. First, the mural was traced, each of the tiles was numbered and the mural was preventively wrapped in gauze, after which the disassembly was started. The panels of were removed from the gird, starting with those along the top row, continuing with those along the middle row, until finally removing the lower row. Each panel, already numbered by Joan Gardy, was packed as soon as it was removed.

The work, owned by the Government of Catalonia, was transferred to the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC), where it is now on display in the Dome Room. A full-scale photographic reproduction of the mural, printed on aluminium panels, has been installed in the lobby of the Department of Education, as a reminder of the original location and maintain the radiance of the building’s entrance.

Year of restoration

2013

General view of the mural in the lobby of the building, before the start of the restoration work Close-up of the tiles and joints between them

During the restoration work: the moment the mural was traced Application of the protective gauze

Material/Technique

Color pencil, acrylic paint, oil pastels, white glue and Canson® 125 g paper

Title/Topic The Ripple

Author

Santi Moix

Location

Jeroni de Moragas Private Foundation, Valldoreix (Vallès Occidental county)

CRBMC Register NO

12964

Coordination Esther Gual

A ripple is a concentric wave that is created on the surface of water when an object falls into it. This is the title of the work in question.

The Jeroni de Moragas Foundation, located in Valldoreix (next to the CRBMC), cares for people with intellectual disabilities and mental illnesses. In 2016, they started the Pas per tu project, which uses artistic creation to raise awareness and give visibility to those in care and also to raise funds for the Foundation. This exciting project finally took shape on 6 June 2016, when Santi Moix came to Valldoreix and created a mural titled «The Ripple», in situ and in collaboration with the people in care.

The work is composed of eight 100 × 70 cm Canson® cards, fastened with pins on industrial cardboard, attached vertically to the wall. On the surface, glued together as if it were a collage, are several coloured circles that the artist asked the people in care to paint before he arrived.

When Santi Moix designed the work while in New York, he requested eight Canson® sheets, imagining several individual works that could be sold separately in order to raise money for the Foundation. But when the time came, having arrived in Valldoreix, the dynamics of the creative process led to the creation of a single work that could in no way be divided up.The issue then arose about how this considerably large work could be taken down from the attic where it had been painted (it wouldn’t fit down the tiny staircase) and how it could be properly supported.

The Foundation contacted the CRBMC and a team of conservator-restorers from the Documents and Contemporary Art departments was sent.

Intervention

The purpose of the intervention was to join the fragments together to regain the unity of the work and also to create a rigid support as a display/protective system for the piece.

Because the original support consisted of eight Canson® cards that had been nailed to the wall and only joined together by the cut-outs that made up the collage, the work had suffered numerous deformations, due to the stresses created by these added elements.

We believed that the ripples and the relief of the work had to be respected and we that we should not create a display system that would eliminate them. Therefore a lattice of Japanese paper was constructed that adapted to the relief of the work and acted as a mechanism for transferring the work onto a rigid support.

Then a lattice was built with Japanese paper, woven like taffeta and was stuck to the rigid to the rigid support only around the edges, so that the work was loose and maintained its original ripples.

Finally, so the work could be handled more easily, an aluminium frame was added behind the honeycomb cardboard. The aluminium added very little weight to the piece, but gave it rigidity, made handling easier (you didn’t have to touch the back to move it), protected the edges and also served as a support for possible future framing. The aluminium structure was machined and attached to the cardboard from behind.

— Esther Gual

Moment prior to moving the work from the attic of the Jeroni de Moragas Private Foundation to the CRBMC

Years of restoration

2016-2017

Photo of the finished front of the work after mounting on the new conservation support

Diagram showing the construction of the support. A: work by Santi Moix, consisting of 8 cards that are only joined together by the elements of the collage. B: Japanese paper lattice. C: honeycomb conservation cardboard Photo of the finished back of the work after mounting on the new conservation support