Information

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Association of Friends
of the National Museuml
of Fine Arts
Av. Figueroa Alcorta 2280
(C1425CKO)
Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Tel: (54-11) 4803-4062 /
4804-9290

info@aamnba.org.ar

MUSEOLOGIC AND MUSEOGRAPHIC RENOVATION AT THE MNBA

The whole first floor of the MNBA is now open to the public after its renovation. From now on it will host the permanent collection of Argentine art of the 19th. and 20th. century. With this inauguration, the project of museologic and museographic renovation of the Museum’s rooms has been completed, including two rooms that will show the works of art of the first cultures of our territory –pre-columbine art of the North-east of Argentina and Andean textiles, together with the tablets, the ‘enconchados’ of Mexico’s Conquest in the 17th. century.
At the museum’s entrance, on Av. Libertador, a sculpture was also inaugurated: “Babel-Buenos Aires”, by sculptor Raúl “Pájaro” Gómez, a project donated by the artist with funds contributed by the Association of Friends of the MNBA.

General objectives

This comprehensive reorganization was guided by three main principles:

a) exhibiting a greater number of works belonging to the Museum’s heritage, that had been kept until then in the museographic reserve;
b) fulfilling the exhibition conditions included in various legacies and donations;
c/)remodeling and upgrading the show rooms, to adapt them to current museologic and museographic criteria, including didactic texts prepared by the Museum’s researchers and its Education Department.

New script and remodeling of the Ground Floor Rooms, that exhibit the European Collection of the 12th. to the 20th. centuries.

The first phase of this comprehensive renovation was inaugurated on March 30, 2004 and consisted in opening to the public the first thirteen room on the Ground Floor, devoted to international art of the 19th. and the 20th. centuries, where we find the work of the masters of pre-impressionism and impressionism, the Italian ´macchiaioli´, the Spanish painters between academicism and modernity, the symbolists, the 20th. century’s avant-garde, the various European tendencies of 1920 to 1930 and the artists of the Second Post-war period until the ‘60s, as well as the Santamarina collection. A new room was added, devoted to Symbolism. The second phase, inaugurated last July, included the rooms showing Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque works, up to the first half of the 19th. century in France.

As a result of the new script, the Ground Floor now exhibits almost 60 works more that were shown before, with a new script, an updated museographic approach, and remodeled safety systems. These rooms were fitted with sensors and infrared barriers, thanks to funding provided by the National Secretariat of Culture

By not exhibiting any longer temporary shows in our Main room (107, first floor), a 1200m2 area has been gained to host our permanent collection of modern and contemporary Argentine art. This room now shows works belonging to the Museum’s collections from 1911 to the end of the ‘80s, following a historical and critical script that applies

Rooms on the First Floor

Rooms on the first floor are dedicated to exhibit pre-columbine, colonial, Argentine and River Plate art collections, that constitute the National Museum of Fine Arts’ most exclusive, comprehensive and valuable heritage.
It is important to give some figures in order to convey the magnitude of this project.
Remodeling of several rooms on the first floor has added 850 linear meters to exhibition space, plus 1,200 m2 in the Main Room, which in the new numbering is now #107, to which 380 linear meters have been added since it is no longer used for temporary shows. The final area, –the largest one- hosts a selection of the Museum’s Argentine Art collection, encompassing from the end of the ‘20s to 1990. Thus, if we consider all rooms in the first floor, over 471 works will be on show, many of which the public will have the pleasure of seeing again or the surprise of discovering for the first time.

The modern and contemporary art script, together with paintings and sculptures, also acknowledges the proper value of etchings, by incorporating a large proportion of prints from our collections. The Prints Cabinet, is a space devoted to graphic works, offering an interesting overview from the ‘40s to the ‘70s.
The Main Room (#107) was inaugurated in 1982, in compliance with the most rigorous technical and museographic standards of the time. The present remodeling has recovered the two original windows that enable adequately filtered natural light to enter the rooms. Moreover, the ceiling was appropriately insulated from humidity, the electrical wiring was renovated, as well as the lighting fixtures. Alarm sensors were extended and their technology was updated.
Color was added to the architecture of certain theme areas, and has helped create varied atmospheres that underline the conceptual content.

In a didactic perspective, various information levels were implemented through the use of specific texts on the walls, taking special care to provide information without interfering with enjoyment of works. Also, an information area was added, equipped with video, which shows the ephemeral experiences of the ‘60s, such as happenings and installations, that complement the historic and museologic updating.
All along the itinerary, window-cases have been built with appropriate materials for the conservation of works or documents on show. Optic fiber technology has been used, as well as light sources with dimming devices.
Seats have been designed to function as resting sites for visitors during their tour. A ramp to facilitate access to handicapped visitors is also part of the building’s renovation.

Shortly a wide and differentiated system of guided visits will be established, including a circuit of argentine sculptures for the blind, where visitors will be able to appreciate the work through touch and information in Braille. Portable recorded audio-guides will also be available, both in Spanish and English with the Museum’s script.

This endeavor was a project of the Museum’s Board of Directors, with the enthusiastic and firm participation of its staff. Lic. María José Herrera was head curator, with the assistance of María Florencia Galesio; the museographic script was entrusted to designer Valeria Keller and museology expert Mariana Rodríguez and the facilities renovation was carried out by Marta Inés Fernández and her working team. The entire work was funded by the Association of Friends of the MNBA, with the agreement and participation of the National Secretariat of Culture and the firm support of the National Department of Cultural Heritage and Museums.

About the first floor’s museologic sequence

Rooms hosting 19th. century Argentine Art show the works of both foreign and local artists, with the first Buenos Aires views, the rural and urban customs, including the valuable iconographic material of our first etchers. The works by Prilidiano Pueyrredón, Cándido López and artists of the so-called Generation of the Eighties, express the consolidation of the arts and related institutions during the second half of the 19th. century, until the introduction of innovations generated by “luministic” painting at the beginning of the 20th. century.

On the same floor, the “María Luisa Bemberg” room hosts a collection of twenty seven works by River Plate masters, donated by the collector to the National Museum of Fine Arts through her children in 1995. The inauguration of this room in December 2004 made it possible to finally incorporate to the Museum this valuable collection, which includes six painters and a sculptress from both banks of the River Plate. Uruguayan artists are represented by six paintings by Pedro Figari (1861-1938), two by Joaquín Torres García (1874-1949) and eight by Rafael Barradas (1890-1929), while the Argentine works include four paintings by Emilio Pettoruti (1892-1971), six by Xul Solar (1887-1963) and a sculpture by Alicia Penalba (1918-1982).

In the Mezzanine (room 106) we enter the extensive panorama of the 20th. century, beginning with the theme nucleus entitled The Salon’s Opinion, which includes National Salons from 1911 to 1940. This collection enables us to appreciate the official taste of National Salons. The adjoining group “Out of the Salon”, shows the prints of the so-called Peoples Artists, who used etching as a medium to disseminate their images of social criticism. In Interiors and Landscapes, subjective views, we see paintings of around 1920. A special nook, La Boca: intimate approach to reality shows works from 1920 to 1940, inspired or produced in the cultural atmosphere of the harbor’s neighborhood. The Arrival of the New presents the painting and sculpture avant-gardes of the ‘20s .

Going down the ramp, we enter the Main Room (107), showing the works of the 20th. century, through sectors entitled The languages of Modern art; Modernity and Tradition (1930-1940); Figurative Diversities (1940-1950); The art of the Imaginary: Surrealism in Argentina between 1930 and 1980; The forms invented by the avant-garde, Geometry in the ‘40s; Líbero Badii; The poetry of Geometry, Abstraction in the ‘50s; Matter and its circumstance, Informalism, end of the ‘50s; The image of Man, neo-figuration, the’60s; Prints Cabinet (1940-1970); the Joy of Modernity, Pop Art and Among the Media, ephemeral works and experiences of the ‘60s; Open works, optical and kinetic-luminic art of the ‘60s; The languages of abstraction, in the ‘70s; Reality and its Images, realism, in the ‘70s; Revisiting the History of Art, in the ‘80s and From the concept to the object, conceptual art between 1960 and 1990.

This Main Room shows a total of 201 works, and includes drawings, etchings, artists’ books, paintings, sculptures and installations.
In summary, if we consider the 318 works shown on the Ground Floor, the 500 in the First Floor and the photographs and small theme shows presented on the second floor, plus 221 that are currently on loan to the National Museum of Fine Arts branch in the Province of Neuquén, as of next month it will be possible to see over one thousand works belonging to our Museum. We believe we are thus responding to a legitimate concern of society and fulfilling the duty of all museums to offer the best of its heritage to the public.

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes
Av. Del Libertador 1473 (1405) Buenos Aires
Tel: (5411) 4803-0802/4691/8817