Movable or Immovable? Registration, Cataloguing and Removing Mural Painting in Urban and Public Art Manifestations as Contextual Modifiers

Abstract

The variety of materials, processes and artistic conceptions that are carried out within contemporary art make its proper conservation and restoration increasingly complex. In urban and public art there are several agents that must be considered when establishing its preservation, including the artists and the community in which the works are inserted. These have changed the idea of History, with a capital letter, to talk about stories (Muñoz, 2003). These stories are linked to the environment in which they are told, because, fundamentally, they are made for it.

This contribution aims to analyze the cataloguing of these works as movable or immovable property, and what it means for them to fall into one category or the other. Considering them as elements that can be moved implies the undermining of their integrity and the modification of their context. This produces the resignification of the work, which becomes something foreign in another location. At the same time, the possible motivations and processes of relocation that take place in this type of manifestations are mentioned, highlighting the need to carry out in-depth studies that avoid these resignifications due to contextual modifications.