Bases de mármol para un techo efímero. Preguntas sobre lo que permanece en el Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Buenos Aires

Abstract

In this essay we wonder how the National Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires (MNBA) has been acquiring modernizing, Eurocentric and elitist features since its founding in 1896 to today. To do this, we focus on the permanent collections—especially in room 3 on the ground floor—and analyze the paradox of its private nature within a public institution. Through the survey of catalogs from the last 50 years, an analysis of the room itself and consultations with the Department of Documentation and Archive, we note the coercion that donors of private collections exert on the museum, not only in the curatorial narrative of the exhibits, but also on what they decide not to show. In this scenario, we wonder what possibilities the institution really has of making curatorial decisions and training its audiences from a public sector perspective.