Four years ago, when the Spanish Ministry of Culture awarded him the National Prize for the visual arts, those who were aware of Isidoro Valcárcel Medina's work received the news with a mixture of puzzlement and delight. The brief text in which the Ministry justified granting the prize mentioned 'the coherence and rigour' of Valcárcel Medina's work, 'developed over four decades', which described in a concise manner the tireless devotion of this artist to his task. However, the text also referred to 'a committed attitude, detached from the dynamics of the art market',¹ words that seemed to allude with calculating vagueness to the chasm that has always separated Valcárcel Medina's creative practice from the ways in which both cultural institutions and the large majority of artists understand art. Those who valued Valcárcel Medina's activities couldn't help wondering about the prize's significance. Did the highest Spanish art institution share a view of art that for half a century has appeared to conflict with that of museums and art centres? Could the Ministry of Culture afford to support the work of an artist who time and again has stated his complete disagreement with the notion of art that cultural institutions uphold and promote, an artist who has never concealed his scorn for these institutions, which he sees as isolating art from the life of citizens so as to better serve their own political ends?

The paradoxes generated in 2007 by granting Valcárcel Medina the National Prize were not new. The last few decades have made it clear that the institutions charged with the task of constructing and increasing the value of artworks