In view of the 2004 ICEFAT Convention being held in Barcelona, this issue focuses on the Spanish art market. Exhibition and museum work in Spain has expanded over the past five years. Not only are there more exhibitions in the major cities, but all round the country, art lovers can enjoy the boom.
	Jessica Ahlgren and Tania Santiago both work as Exhibition Co-ordinators for Edict S.L in Madrid, Spain.

When ICEFAT News spoke to Jessica Ahlgren and Tania Santiago at Edict S.L., one of Spain's leading fine art transporters, it was two satisfied but also stressed Exhibition Co-ordinators describing the Spanish art transport market to us. The company has been fully occupied with a series of inward and outward loans over the past years. Jessica Ahlgren explains that the market has been growing over the past five years, mostly thanks to the great willingness of the Ministry of Culture to back up and finance cultural events.

"And the loan and saving banks in Spain have a commitment to invest an important percentage of their profits in culture," she continues.

As well as this, the Spanish state has backed a major project called Spanish Art Abroad.

"We are currently transporting works by Spanish artists all over the world; from Egypt to El Salvador and Bolivia to Brasil," adds Tania Santiago.

Neither she nor Jessica expects any great changes on the Spanish art market over the coming years especially considering that the major museums in Madrid are making their installations larger which means that there will be more temporary exhibitions, as well as the fact that a lot of new musuems in smaller Spanish cities have been created over the last 5 years.

"It looks very good," they smile.

Special classification
Both women agree that the Spanish art market is in many respects similar to those of France and Italy. The state is keen to keep strict control of Spanish heritage which means that loaning out fine art from Spain can be difficult, and tangled in a mass of bureaucracy.

"For all art which is at least 100 years old, or where the artist is deceased, a special export licence is always required, even within the EU" explains Jessica Ahlgren. "That licence can take up to six weeks to get, so it's important that institutions who want to borrow works of art from Spain make arrangements in good time." This is obviously important for the foreign agents to keep in mind too. "We often receive requests for sending works to for example the US within 10 days and if it's a Goya-painting it's just not possible".

Planning
Transport companies must also submit to public tenders to compete for the larger incoming exhibition. This means that many shows are allotted at the last minute, and that can make planning painful. It also has consequences for agents working with Edict as they might be asked to do packing and transports in a much shorter time than they would prefer.

Free police escort
Edict's head office is in Madrid. Everywhere in the country is accessible from the capital by lorry within one day.

"Basically it's 600 km to most corners of the country, as well as to Lisbon in Portugal", explains Tania Santiago. "And security measures are very good; all public institutions can apply for police escort - which is free of charge - for the transport of their works or of exhibitions if they consider it to be necessary.

Madrid's proximity to the rest of the country by road means that both women recommend all fine art air transport coming into Spain to end in Madrid or Barcelona and do the onwards transportion by truck.

The advice both Tania and Jessica can offer to museums and exhibitors wanting to work with Spain is essentially to give themselves plenty of time. The certified transporters in the country are experienced and accustomed to dealing with everything necessary for both inward and outward loans of fine art.