Coordination of Temporary Exhibitions

Montserrat Sabán Godoy, Management Technician, 1977-2016

After these four years, I also spent a lot of time working on the exhibitions. They suddenly needed someone to coordinate an exhibition and they asked me whether I could do it. I was working a great deal with Matías Díaz Padrón and he asked me whether I could help him with the exhibition. But there was someone else with me too. I recall that at the exhibition entitled “Art in the Age of Calderón” [at the Velázquez Palace in 1981-1982], Mercedes Orihuela was also there. Then we did the exhibition entitled “Europalia”, also with Matías Díaz, although this wasn’t at the Museo del Prado, but in Brussels. Although nearly all the pictures belonged to the Museum. I also took charge of the bibliography, of drawing up all the bibliographical details. Matías was a disaster with things like that. He’d put: “… Magazine”, but wouldn’t indicate the year. Sometimes he put the name of the magazine and sometimes you had to imagine it. Other times he put the year and you asked yourself what had been published that year that was linked to the matter at hand. So you had to work it out for yourself. I started working on the exhibitions and I did that for a long time.
I staged various exhibitions as a coordinator. With Matías Díaz Padrón I did one called “Art in the Age of Calderón” or something like that. I think that was the first exhibition I did, and I even created some information cards for the catalogue. With Manuela Mena I did the exhibition entitled “Goya’s Whim and Invention: Cabinet Pictures, Sketches and Miniatures” [in 1993]. And later on I did “The Palace of the Planet King” [in 2005] and another exhibition on cabinet pictures. They give you a list of the works that they want to show. And then you have to manage the process of requesting the works from each institution, evaluating the worth of the works for insurance purposes, organising the transport in order to bring the works from one place to another. You have to coordinate all of these aspects. Then, when the exhibition is assembled, the curator is there, which makes sense, because he has to decide where each painting goes, because maybe he already has an idea of the perspective the exhibition seeks to convey. This picture goes next to this one because, at some point, they were linked, or they were painted during the same period. So then you help to set up the exhibition, which is hard work and extremely stressful. The truth is that it’s highly stressful, because it doesn’t seem as if you’re going to pull it off. They tell you the truck has departed and it’s on its way, but then it snows and you don’t know what to do with that truck that’s out there somewhere, lost, and packed up with works of art. Of course, it creates so much anxiety that you can’t even sleep. That’s the truth.
We kept in touch by letter, because there was no Internet. You wrote a letter and you had to wait for the reply to arrive in another letter. Then it all changed, and it was marvellous because you sent an e-mail and they answered you straight away; you had the answer almost on the same day. But first you had to write to ask for the works, and then they replied ‘no’ and so you would write again in order to try to convince them. That is to say, it was hard work. Before the exhibition, at least six months prior to the inauguration, you have to know exactly what works you have available. Some curators have a very clear idea and they draw up a scheme for the exhibition and say: “I want this, this and this”. But others, as they work on the exhibition, change their idea and suddenly they decide they want another picture. So just when you think you’ve wrapped up an exhibition, it turns out you haven’t: “Ask for this picture! Let’s see if we’re lucky and they loan it to us, because now the exhibition’s all organised, I think we need it”. So then you have to start from the beginning again. This happens a lot, having to make changes within a very short space of time. You’ve probably already drawn up the list of insurances, contracted the transport, and suddenly you have to change everything quickly. But, of course, maybe the transport money has already been allocated. So then they have to accept a new estimate at the Ministry, which means the exhibition is looming down on you and you still haven’t received the Ministry’s go-ahead. This is quite nerve-wracking, because you don’t even have time for the pictures to arrive. Your life is put on hold until the day of the inauguration. I always say that anybody who works on an exhibition has considerable worth, because it’s difficult work. I’ve dreamt about the Museum many times and I still have nightmares about these tense moments when you are about to open an exhibition and the pictures still haven’t arrived.