Juan Tamariz dies at 83, the magician who turned card magic into a popular phenomenon

No reliable and up-to-date information was found in the consulted sources about the specific requirements for joining the Spanish Society of Illusionism (SEI) (types of members, tests, endorsements, or procedures), nor about official uniform bases at the state level. This suggests that the practical details of access are mainly managed through the local circles or associations integrated into the SEI and internal regulations that are not indexed in the public databases used in the research.

That said, it is possible to explain how access to magician associations of this type in Spain usually works in practice and what reasonable steps you should take if you want to join the SEI today, making it clear that the following is an indicative outline and not a transcription of current official requirements:

1. General structure of the SEI and role of the circles

• The SEI is a federation of local circles and groups of illusionists (for example, circles in large cities or provincial associations). Often, the real way in is to become a member of the SEI circle in your area, which in turn integrates you into the state structure.
• This implies that there is not always a single centralized procedure: each circle may have internal regulations regarding tests, waiting times, or endorsements, although based on general common statutes of the SEI.

2. Usual requirements (indicative)

In illusionism associations similar to the SEI, a series of conditions are repeated that you will probably find, with nuances, when you contact the circle that corresponds to you:

• Minimum age: it is common to require being of legal age to be a full member. In some circles, there may be a figure of youth member or “aspirant” for minors, with the consent of parents or guardians.
• Commitment to the ethical code and professional secrecy: it is usually required to expressly accept statutes and a code of ethics (respect for the secrecy of tricks, respect for the audience, responsible use of magic, etc.). Without this adherence, registration is usually not processed.
• Registration fee and periodic fees: registration normally includes:
  • An initial registration fee.
  • An annual or quarterly membership fee, which finances activities, bulletins, social venue, etc.
• Endorsements or presentation by members: it is common to require that the aspirant be introduced by one or two active members, who vouch for their real interest in illusionism and responsible behavior. In some circles, if you do not know anyone, they may allow you to spend some time as a guest before applying for membership.
• Level test or interview: many associations require:
  • A practical test (presenting some tricks before a commission), or
  • At least an interview with circle officials to check motivation, degree of commitment, and attitude regarding secrecy.
  The goal is not so much “professionalism” as to ensure that the person has a serious interest and is not joining just out of passing curiosity.

3. Types of members that usually exist

Although details may vary, it is common in entities of this type to find figures such as:

• Full member: full member, with voting rights and participation in the life of the association.
• Youth or aspirant member: for minors or people in a trial period, with some limited rights.
• Honorary member: granted to great figures or people who have provided extraordinary services to the entity.

4. Practical steps you should take right now

Since we do not have the updated official requirements of the SEI, the safest path for you today is:

• Locate the SEI circle in your city or province (searching “Spanish Society of Illusionism + your city name” on the web or social networks).
• Request membership information by email or form: explicitly ask them to detail:
  • Available member types and their rights.
  • Age requirements, documentation, and endorsements.
  • If there is an entrance test or aspirant period.
  • Amount of the entry fee and periodic fees.
• Request a copy of the statutes or internal regulations, to verify firsthand your obligations and rights once inside.

In summary: I cannot offer you, with documentary support, a closed list of “official and current” SEI requirements because that information does not appear in the accessible sources consulted. What I can give you is this general framework of how these types of associations are usually organized and, above all, the concrete actions so that you obtain the exact and updated requirements of the SEI circle that corresponds to you.

Within the framework of local government, the Madrid City Council has its own competence to regulate and grant honorary distinctions, including the Gold Medal of Madrid, as a form of institutional recognition to individuals or legal entities that have provided relevant services to the city. This competence is supported by the basic local government regulations and the Madrid regional legislation on local administration (for example, the Law 2/2003, on Local Administration of the Community of Madrid), which recognizes municipalities' regulatory and self-organization capacity to order their institutional life.

1. Normative competence and self-organization

• The City Council, through its bodies, exercises a normative faculty to create and regulate municipal honorary distinctions. This is concretized in the approval of a regulation of honors and distinctions or equivalent norm, where the catalog of decorations (including the Gold Medal), their modalities, requirements, and effects are established.
• This regulatory power derives from municipal autonomy and allows the City Council to define:
  • Who can be recipients of the Medal (individuals, entities, Spanish or foreign, etc.).
  • What merits or services are considered “relevant” or “extraordinary” for Madrid.
  • Whether distinctions can be awarded posthumously.
  • Regime of incompatibilities or accumulation with other municipal distinctions.

2. Competent bodies

• In large municipalities, the central body in these matters is the City Council Plenary, which assumes the competence to agree on the granting of the highest-ranking distinctions (such as the Gold Medal), as these are decisions of high institutional content and representative of the entire corporation.
• The Mayor's Office and, where appropriate, the Governing Board usually have functions of initiative and proposal:
  • Propose candidacies to the Plenary.
  • Order the initiation of the files.
  • Supervise the administrative processing.
• There may also be a specific commission (permanent or ad hoc), formed by councilors and, where appropriate, technical staff, responsible for studying proposals and issuing reports or prior opinions to the plenary decision.

3. Functions in the granting procedure

The municipal competence unfolds throughout its own administrative procedure, which the City Council is empowered to design. Typical functions include:

• Initiation of the file: the competent body (usually the Mayor's Office or a Government area) opens the granting file based on a motivated proposal, which may come from municipal groups, councilors, citizen entities, or the Mayor's Office itself.
• Instruction: municipal administrative services carry out the necessary actions:
  • Gather background and merits of the proposed person or entity.
  • Request, if provided by the regulation, reports from commissions or consultative bodies.
  • Prepare a technical proposal or justificatory report.
• Proposal of resolution: after instruction, a proposal (from the Mayor's Office, Governing Board, or commission) is submitted to the Plenary, which includes the specific reasons why the Gold Medal granting is considered deserved.
• Granting agreement: the Plenary adopts the agreement, usually by vote. Given the symbolic and consensus nature of these distinctions, broad or unanimous support is often sought, although the regulation may establish specific majorities.
• Publication and formalization: the City Council has the function to:
  • Publish the agreement in the corresponding official bulletin and/or on the municipal notice board and electronic headquarters.
  • Organize the solemn awarding ceremony (ceremony, protocol, use of the city’s coat of arms and symbols).
  • Issue the physical titles, diplomas, or insignias of the Gold Medal.

4. Scope and effects of the distinction

• The Gold Medal of Madrid is a purely honorary distinction: it usually does not generate economic rights or special legal status, beyond public recognition of merits.
• The City Council does have the competence to establish the symbolic effects:
  • Honorific treatment linked to the distinction (for example, mentions in official acts).
  • Registration of the awardee in honor books or municipal registers of distinctions.
  • Possible prominent participation in institutional city events.
• Likewise, the municipal corporation retains the power of revocation of the distinction, through a motivated agreement and with procedural guarantees, if serious circumstances justify it and the regulation provides for it.

In short, the Madrid City Council exercises comprehensive competence over the Gold Medal of Madrid: it defines the distinction and its requirements, decides to whom it is granted, organizes its delivery, and determines its honorary effects, all through its own bodies and within the framework of local autonomy recognized by basic and regional legislation.

In the sources I have consulted (press releases from the Ministry of Culture, Moncloa, and accessible press documentation through the Demócrata database) there is no specific list of Spanish magicians or illusionists awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts, nor clear references that allow reliably extracting a complete list of awardees in this particular discipline. That is: with the available information, I cannot rigorously confirm which other magicians, apart from the one you have in mind, have officially received this decoration.

Why it is difficult to provide a list of awarded “magicians”

The Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts is granted by the Government of Spain, at the proposal of the Ministry of Culture, and each year the list of awarded persons and entities is published in the Official State Gazette and official press releases (for example, those of 2022, 2023, and 2024 found at:

• note on the 2024 medal awardees
• note on the 2023 medals
• 2022 medal awarding ceremony

These lists detail the names of the awardees and, sometimes, their specialty (“painter,” “singer,” “film director,” “dancer,” “art historian,” etc.). However, in the explored documentation:

• There are no profession filters that allow, with a single query, obtaining “all illusionists” or “all magicians” awarded.
• The consulted press releases do not explicitly mention any awardee identified as “magician” or “illusionist.” They do mention filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, writers, circus entities, etc., but without clear references to magic artists.

What has been securely located

The searches have confirmed:

• The general nature of the distinction: it is granted to persons and entities who have stood out extraordinarily in artistic and cultural creation, or in the protection and dissemination of Spanish cultural heritage.
• Examples of other awardees from fields different from magic: musicians like Julio Iglesias, visual artists, writers, dance companies, filmmakers, or cultural institutions, cited in official notes and contextual articles, but not as illusionists.
• Indirect references to the medal in other contexts (for example, when a biography mentions that someone was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts, as happens with some visual artists or choreographers), again without magicians identified as such.

On the other hand, more specific searches such as “Juan Tamariz Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts,” “Mag Lari Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts,” or “Spanish illusionists Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts” have not returned relevant results in the examined database, nor in the Culture and Moncloa texts linked to it. This implies that, relying only on this evidence, I cannot documentarily prove a list of magicians recognized with this medal.

How you could reconstruct the list more precisely

If you need an exhaustive and verified answer, the safest procedure involves:

1. Consulting the Official State Gazette (BOE) year by year from the creation of the medal (1978) to today, reviewing the ministerial orders granting the Gold Medals of Merit in Fine Arts. Each one lists all awardees of that year.
2. Extracting names linked to circus, variety shows, or performing arts and, in case of doubt, cross-checking their professional career through search engines or biographies (to verify if their main activity is magic or illusionism).
3. Verifying on the Ministry of Culture website (section “Awards and recognitions”) if there is any historical compilation of medals, sometimes offered in PDF format or downloadable databases.
4. Cross-checking with sectoral sources of Spanish magicians and illusionists (magician associations, illusionism societies, etc.), which usually maintain lists of institutional awards obtained by their members and probably identify precisely which members have received this particular medal.

Conclusion

With the institutional and journalistic information accessible in this search, it is not possible to offer a reliable list of “other Spanish magicians” who have received the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts, nor even to narrow down a small group of names with full documentary certainty. Any list I would give now based on memory or assumptions would be unrigorous.

If you want, in a next step I can help you design a working table or a small protocol to gradually compile, year by year, the data you find in the BOE and official websites, until you reconstruct that list yourself with guarantees.