It was during the exhibition “Impressionismo: Paris e a Modernidade”, held between 2012 and 2013, that the companies Chenue and Expomus decided to invest in the project of setting up a contemporary fine art storage facility with a standard of quality that until then did not exist in Brazil. This was how Clé Reserva was born.
Founded in 1760 to look after Queen Marie Antoinette's luggage, Chenue maintains 70,000 square metres of areas dedicated to specialist storage of artworks, mainly in Europe. The quality of its services is so well recognised that the company counts the Musée du Louvre among its main clients.
Expomus, for its part, with forty years behind it, was the first Brazilian company specialising in cultural projects and museology, and has been responsible for staging some of the most important exhibitions of recent decades. In addition to the aforementioned “Impressionismo: Paris e a Modernidade”, held in partnership with the Musée d'Orsay, the company also produced “Picasso e a modernidade espanhola” and “O Triunfo da Cor: o pós-impressionismo”, the most visited exhibitions in the world in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
Expomus has also worked on the setting up of institutions such as the Museu da Imigração and the Museu de Zoologia da USP (both in São Paulo), and on the museological redevelopment of the Sítio Roberto Burle Marx (in Rio de Janeiro), which in 2021 was recognised by Unesco as a World Heritage Site, among various other projects with an impact on the Brazilian cultural scene.
“For the Clé project, we brought in a specialist French practice that worked with the best Brazilian suppliers to implement a high-level service”, says Chenue executive Christian Noble. “Our space has all the pre-qualifications required for the storage of artworks. And here, we go one step further than what Chenue does elsewhere in the world”, adds Maria Ignez Mantovani Franco, general director of Expomus.
She is referring to the broad range of specialist services that Clé's clients can access through Expomus, such as the cataloguing of artworks, insurance and valuation consultancy; framing, moving, hanging of works, packing and transport; conservation and restoration; reception of couriers, customs clearance and airport assistance.
In this video, the executives of the two companies talk about the motivations behind the Clé Reserva venture.
