On 29 December, authorities from Guatemala’s Public Ministry (MP) arrived on the Museo de Arte Colonial in Antigua to demand the court-ordered relocation of 287 artworks. The gathering had been housed contained in the museum’s 18th-century constructing for 89 years. The raid was the results of a neighborhood authorized continuing initiated by an undisclosed plaintiff who had alleged poor conservation circumstances inside.
A hasty two-week relocation, adopted by the museum’s closure, has raised considerations in regards to the establishment’s future and the destiny of its assortment, which is now briefly saved on the Palacio Nacional de la Cultura in Guatemala Metropolis. Six work, nonetheless, nonetheless stay within the shuttered museum constructing as they have been too fragile to take away.
The Museo de Arte Colonial opened in 1936 in an historic constructing that after housed the Universidad de San Carlos. “Its opening was a part of the federal government’s effort to advertise Antigua as a tourism centre,” Johann Melchor, a neighborhood historian and skilled in Guatemalan colonial artwork, tells The Artwork Newspaper. “It housed key Seventeenth-to-Nineteenth-century work and sculptures by Guatemalan artists like Tomás de Merlo and works by Cristóbal de Villalpando from New Spain.”
The constructing is owned by town of Antigua—a Unesco World Heritage Website since 1979. The town granted a renewable proper of use to Guatemala’s Ministry of Tradition, which is answerable for the gathering. “The settlement with Antigua expires in 2032, and we’ve got not obtained communications indicating in any other case,” Liwy Grazioso, Guatemala’s cultural minister, stated at a press convention in January.
Emergency relocation and conservation considerations
The courtroom determination prompted an “emergency” relocation of the works, which continued till 12 January, when the MP shut off the constructing’s safety cameras and returned the keys to town. However Grazioso sees inconsistencies within the proceedings, saying the raid stemmed from a “unilateral listening to” and that entry to the case file has been denied. “Now we have requested an pressing assembly with Antigua’s mayor and filed authorized challenges towards this determination,” he stated.
Of specific concern are the six large-scale work nonetheless inside—5 of them by Tomás de Merlo (1694-1739)—left behind because of their fragility and now utterly unsupervised, because the safety personnel have been dismissed. “Consolidation work is carried out in case we’re pressured to maneuver them, which places them in danger,” Grazioso stated. “Now we have requested a halt, but when the MP disregards conservation recommendation, it should assume accountability.”
The courtroom determination was based mostly primarily on a report by the Consejo Nacional para la Protección de la Antigua Guatemala (CNPAG), which the MP had requested to evaluate the museum’s assortment in Could 2025. The CNPAG’s preliminary report, nonetheless, famous that solely ten works have been in pressing want of restoration and beneficial that it’s carried out in situ.
Conservation points are nothing new on the museum. “The works, a part of Guatemala’s most vital public colonial assortment, weren’t stored below best circumstances, however they’ve remained in the identical setting for 50 years,” says Javier Quiñónez, the CNPAG’s Antigua conservator. “Sudden modifications in temperature, humidity and air flow could cause irreversible harm, as supplies are susceptible to abrupt shifts. For instance, wooden could crack and paint layers could detach.”
The dealing with of the works—lots of that are key examples of Antigua’s distinctive sculpture model—requires a well timed course of, which is unlikely to have occurred given the time constraints in taking them out of the constructing. “When artworks left the museum to be exhibited overseas, they have been individually assessed by consultants,” says Blanca Betancourt, a former museum director for greater than 30 years. “All authorized necessities have been fulfilled, they usually have been packed below strict requirements.”
This problem will not be remoted both. Antigua has seen the closure of different museums, just like the Museo del Libro Antiguo in 2021. And the historic venue that after housed the Museo Santiago de los Caballeros was repurposed in 2021 because the Museo Nacional de Arte de Guatemala, town’s solely remaining public museum. However the closure of the Museo de Arte Colonial is very uncommon. “That is the primary I’ve heard of a courtroom continuing associated to heritage in Guatemala,” Melchor says.
Latest occasions may additionally bear political implications, because the museum constructing might doubtlessly be repurposed. “The museum was a neighborhood hub the place college students and guests engaged with the artwork, programming and the venue,” Betancourt says. Because of the closure, the Bienal de Arte Paiz, which makes use of the museum as one in every of its venues, was pressured to relocate works to Guatemala Metropolis.
“This displays a broader problem regarding Guatemalan heritage,” Melchor says of the entire state of affairs.
In the meantime, uncertainty reigns because the Museo de Arte Colonial works await their destiny in storage. “The precedence is verifying the gathering’s circumstances,” Betancourt says, “and hopefully its exhibition in the identical venue or in one other one in Antigua.”
