Collection Storage in Works

Since 2012, the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo, founded in April 1963, is under process of occupation of its new venue at Ibirapuera Park. This building was renovated to house the Museum, and originally was the so-called Agriculture Palace, belonging into the complex of pavilions of the park, designed by Oscar Niemeyer for the fourth Centennial of the city of São Paulo. To transform such a monument of Brazilian modern architecture into a museum venue, to be the site of the most important public collections of modern and contemporary art of the continent is not a simple project.

The decision of the University to concentrate of the infrastructure of MAC USP in its new venue led still to the adaptation of use of some of the spaces and renovation of others. Therefore, in 2016, two major renovations were undertaken: the optimization of space in the offices areas, and the construction of three classrooms; and the adaptation of spaces to receive the Museum's collections in a broader sense - its artworks, its library and its archive, the two latter soon to be significantly augmented with the donation of the library and archive of Walter Zanini, the first director of MAC USP (1963-1978).

While the Museum awaits the end of the adequation works of its collection storage rooms - the place where the artworks are kept when not in exhibition - MAC USP's audience will have the opportunity to see the great majority of its collection "in transit". This is a way to present the backstage of the museum, engaging visitors in the meanders of the museological operation, its processes and conjunctures.

The works exhibited in the gallery spaces titled "Collections Storage at Work" are not articulated by a specific theme, or by conceived curatorial choices, but the bear witness to the everyday work realized by specialized staff in various fields, and professors, into preservation and research, being thus open laboratories so that new relations can be made. It is never enough to say that to curate is, first, to know and to preserve. Actually, we preserve better what we know better, these two activities being intertwined. To exhibit is above all to preserve.