Sowing Seeds for the Future
Interview with Berta Sichel, Director of the Audio Visual Department of the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía National Museum (MNCARS).
Despite the lengthy trajectory of video art in the international context, Spain has been one of the last nations to incorporate audio visual works in its museums. The Centro de Arte Reina Sofía National Museum (MNCARS) in Madrid, one of the leading European art centers, has for the past eight years seen its annual program complemented by a varied and elaborate agenda of audiovisual cycles, which familiarize the public with this art, and which culminated a year ago with the celebrated exhibition Primera generación. Arte e imagen en movimiento (1963- 1986) [First generation. Art and the Moving Image (1963-1986)]. The Brazilian Berta Sichel, Director of the Audio Visual Department of the MNCARS, is responsible for all the activities in the Museum ́s gallery referred to new media. She shared with Arte al Día her views on video art and museography, the goals she pursues, and the Latin American panorama.
How and when did your interest in the audio visual media and in your work as curator begin?
It was almost twenty years ago. I was doing a Master ́s degree at New York University and I began to have contact with video as something more than a media tool. It was a new vision: video was an art medium. In 1983, the curator of the São Paulo Biennial, Walter Zanini, who was always interested in the new media, asked me if I could organize an exhibition. I had studied Journalism, and I never thought I would be able to do this, but I considered the idea. That moment marked the beginning of my career: I thought I might write texts using images. All the exhibitions I have staged have always been thesis exhibitions.
What aspect of your work would you highlight particularly: your task as a curator, or as the person responsible for a department in one of the major European museums?
The MNCARS ́s Audio Visual Department is a small section within the museum ́s structure. I love having the possibility to plan, since I do not have the time to curate all the projects; however, the program resulting from the way I work is exactly the same as if I were curating the Department. I decide on the programs according to the guidelines I want to follow at each particular moment.
What goals do you pursue from your Department?
Above all, we want what we do now to be a seed for the future, and that the young public may become acquainted with audio visual works – both the historical and the recent ones.
That is something really worth highlighting, since you are carrying out a formative task and a dissemination strategy that is very important for familiarizing the public at large with the work of many artists.
The Department is always greatly concerned with transmitting information and knowledge, as is the case when we produce a brochure; we always include information on the works and the artists. We invite artists and critics, and we organize lectures, some of them in conjunction with the MNCARS ́s Education Department.
What is your perspective of video art with respect to museography?
There are works whose formats do not adjust to the space available for the Department to use within the Museum, that is, the auditorium. Some works require a different exhibition space, but we must work with the conditions we have at present. After eight years, this space has become the Department ́s “exhibitions hall”, and it has also become a reference point where interesting things have been accomplished. When exhibition spaces begin to be assigned to video art and audio visual works, and they are not restrained to auditoriums, people will become much more interested in them.
The inclusion of Latin American artists in the MNCARS audio visual programs responds rather to reasons of dissemination, or is it the reflection of the thriving of Latin American video art?
I am now much more involved with what is happening in Brazil, which will be the next guest country at ARCO, and we will plan some events, which will include a monographic exhibition dedicated to films and video art, installations, and three performances. There is a great deal of audio visual activity in Latin America. Very interesting things come from Venezuela, Argentina, and Colombia. With Osvaldo Macià, who works in London, we staged a sound installation in the patio in 2003. The problem with Latin America is that many artists live in Paris, Berlin or New York. One might say that there is an exodus of artists who are very popular in the host countries. Then there is Mexico, with a great deal of activity due, in part, to its proximity to the United States, and Argentina, with Buenos Aires as its nerve center. People continue to move, in spite of the distances.
How does the very significant Latin American presence in the audio visual collection of the MNACRS begin to build up?
When I started to purchase video works for the MNCARS, I acquired some by various Latin American artists exhibited in an international context, as for example, Lamelas, Davidovich or Minujin. I thought that what was important was to tell the story of how video had made its entrance into the art universe, and there they were...many Latin American artists who already worked with audio visual media in the 1970s and 1980s, in spite of the lack of resources, and with great curiosity to find out what was happening beyond their countries ́ borders.
At the time of planning the shows you tend to plan monographic exhibitions on the basis of regions, artists or trends. What criterion would be more applicable to Latin American video art?
The three of them are perfectly valid. The Department has featured monographic exhibitions devoted to David Lamelas or Rafael França, and other programs have incorporated Latin American artists. What is really important is to situate all Latin American artists, contextualize them in such an international framework.
