Núria Güell closes the first cycle of the public programme Geysers (curated by Montse Badia) with a lecture entitled NATIONAL HERITAGE. New temporary exhibition at the MNAC, 2024.
The artist makes public her extensive research into the little-known function of museums as custodians of works of art that undergo some judicial process. A search inside and outside the museum and the result of multiple conversations with professionals in the management, security and registration of works of art in heritage centres.
Núria Güell’s proposal takes the form of a conference in which she compiles this entire process, to evoke an exhibition curated, no longer by art specialists, but by the courts of justice.
Núria Güell understands her artistic practice “as a socially and politically necessary practice in which the cultural fact and the established are put into play.” Her work process starts with the research and analysis of data and situations, continues with the posing of questions and, finally, with a proposal for action with real impact.
In her research at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, she focuses on a little-known but common function of museums: that of safeguarding works that are in judicial custody, that is, those assets (works of art) that judges proceed to secure as litigious assets when a seizure or confiscation is decreed in a legal case.
Núria Güell delves into this role of custodian, which clearly falls within the functions of the museum (as defined by UNESCO, “the institution at the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage”) but which, at the same time, reveals the other side of the notion of heritage associated with humanistic values, knowledge, beauty or goodness. Precisely because of their value, works of art are also subject to looting, falsification or illegal acquisitions.
In order to delve deeper into the frictions generated by definitions of heritage value arising from non-legitimised narratives, Núria Güell’s proposal takes the form of a conference in which she compiles her entire research process, to evoke an exhibition curated not by art specialists but by the courts of justice. With this project, Núria Güell invites us to re-evaluate the dichotomy between idealised notions of cultural preservation and the legal complexities underlying the custody of art in a contemporary social context.
