Snapshots of the Art System in Spain, 1982-2012

The art system in Spain tentatively began to take shape in the eighties, during the early days of the transition to democracy. A decade later it had put down roots, with the opening and promotion of new museums and contemporary art centres throughout the whole country, a trend that has continued up until the recent past.

Rightly or wrongly, the State has been highly influential in shaping this system right from the start, a circumstance that sets it apart from other European models and from the Anglo American model in particular. On one hand, this influence can be seen in a cultural financing model that is essentially based on government sponsorship and has made it possible to carry out projects unfettered by the limitations of the market; on the other, it has led to an unfortunate history of political meddling in cultural management.

This meeting returns to some of the key elements of that first stage of gestation of a State art system, offering a snapshot of the debates, agents, institutions and cultural policies that shaped it. Rather than trying to offer a thorough vision of all of the developments that have followed, the idea is to compare this snapshot with the situation today – in the context of a much more globalised (art) world –, when the art system in Spain and its models of governance and financing are again undergoing a profound rethink.