Voces del Prado

The Grand Velázquez Exhibition

José Luis Díez García, Head of the Department of Conservation of 19th Century Painting, 1988-2013

I think I learned almost everything I know about staging exhibitions and setting up museum exhibition halls – and they say I’m not bad at it – through just one experience, the staging of the Velázquez Exhibition. I’d been at the Museo del Prado little more than a year and the only thing I did was to stand in a corner and observe what was happening, without saying a word. The Director, Alfonso Pérez Sánchez, and the Assistant Director, Manuela Mena, hung all the Velázquez masterpieces in the Museum’s halls. And I observed how they talked about things. I could see that apparently insignificant details to an uneducated eye were completely fundamental in terms of creating a harmonious and balanced effect in the hall, something that could be achieved through the slightest movement. That’s what I learned during the staging of that exhibition. It’s not something you can find in books. I even spent Saturday and Sunday evenings enjoying these extremely enriching discussions from the point of view of perception and sensibility, because the exhibition had to be assembled in time. It’s a gift that very few people have. And those who don’t have it, however expert they may be, will never be able to acquire it. It’s simply a certain perception of the aesthetic effect or the work of art. If you have it you are privileged and, of course, you have a good idea about how things should be done.
I particularly recall a great discussion between Pérez Sánchez and Manuela Mena regarding the height at which Velázquez’s Christ Crucified, the Prado’s Christ, should be hung. It was amazing to observe the difference in perception of a painting such as this when it was hung at the conventional height for a museum and when it was hung as it finally was in the exhibition. The academic discussion revolved around what was in Velázquez’s mind when he painted that picture, how he wanted it to be seen. It was a devotional painting, a work that was meant to be hung at the height of an altar. It’s not the same contemplating a painting hung at Museum height as seeing it hung in a higher position, approximately above an altar. The perception of Christ’s humanity, the dramatic sense of the feet for example, which are closer to the observer’s eyes, lead to a completely different appreciation and reading of the painting. These kinds of things, apparently tiny details that seem to have little importance … well these are the things that taught me that it’s not so easy to hang a painting.