Heterodocsies. Isidoro Valcárcel Medina

Considered as one of the pioneers of conceptual art in our country, the work of Isidoro Valcárcel Medina (Murcia, 1937) is characterised by the rebellion and the proposition of social events that disrupt daily evolution. His art is more related with situations and reality than with the production of objects. On various occasions, the tale exceeds the work or represents the work itself, leading to a lack of material aspects or filing in several of his actions. Therefore, elements such as playing, movement or luck are constant in his career.  Valcárcel Medina constantly repeated: “The hard thing is being in the world and not making a work of art”.
 

His training includes Architecture and Fine Arts studies in Madrid. His career begins with painting (winning the Plastic Arts National Prize in 2007), first of all from informalism and later from budgets similar to constructive art. He later becomes involved in large dimensions in the urban space, with his Tubular Structures, a specific creation for the Pamplona Encounters 1972, where he also presented his film, La Celosía. From then on, Valcárcel began a cycle of works aimed at diverse movements and urban spaces, with photographic works and sound references as well as sociological art, using surveys, public announcements, anonymous photographs, joint exams, dictionaries or telephone recordings. He is famous for designing the Tower fo

r Suicides, the House of Paro, the Expugnable Castle and other unfeasible projects in his Premature Architectures, his book on Stories beyond the Story under the title 2000 d. of J.C. and his People Dictionary compiled on the street in Sao Paulo. At the end of the 1970’s, his work evolved towards poetic intervention and postal action. Present in retrospectives and in exhibitions at the Reina Sofía, the Tapiés Foundation or the MACBA, Valcárcel Medina is proud of never having sold a work of art and critical of the evolution of contemporary art, he assures that “today it is more difficult to escape from money than from the Police”.

Works:

• Pinturas secuenciales (1962)
• Armarios (1964-1967)
• Secuencias (1968)
• Algunas maneras de hacer esto (1969)
• El libro transparente (1970)
• A continuación (lugares, sonidos y palabras)  (1970)
• Estructuras tubulares (1972)
• La celosía (1972)
• Conversaciones telefónicas (1973)
• Relojes (1973)
• Motores (1973)
• 12 ejercicios de medición sobre la ciudad de Córdoba (1974)
• Retratos callejeros (Madrid, 1975)
  
• El diccionario de la gente (São Paulo, 1976)
• 136 manzanas de Asunción (Asunción, 1976)
• Arquitectura prematura (1994)
• I.V.M. Oficina de gestión (Madrid, 1994)
• 2000 d. de J.C. (Madrid, 1995-2000)
• Ir y venir de Valcárcel Medina (Barcelona, Murcia, Granada, 2002)
• El arte del doblez público (2005)
• Topología hermenéutica, o bien hermenéutica topológica (2005)
• Exposición en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA) (2006)