Juan Muñoz
One of the most iconic Spanish artists and curators of the last century, Juan Muñoz is known for his enigmatic cast figures. Pulling molds, reference and inspiration from the unsettling, Muñoz often used the forms of ventriloquist dummies, puppets, and punching bag clowns to address notions of isolation, irrationality and despair in the human condition. Architectural components played a key part in many of Muñoz’s installations and arrangements, allowing the artist to manipulate the exhibition space. Cast in bronze or resin, his figures appear ghostly, in gathered groups—twisted faces and hidden motives imbuing his sculptures with a haunting sense of purpose. In a site-specific installation for the Dia Center for the Arts in New York, entitled A Place Called Abroad (1998), Muñoz transformed a 7,500-foot gallery into a maze of forms, at once familiar and otherworldly.
Muñoz’s work has been shown in institutions such as the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Spain, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Museo Nacional de Reina Sofía, Madrid, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and the Tate Modern, London. After his death in 2001, a major retrospective of his work was exhibited at …
One of the most iconic Spanish artists and curators of the last century, Juan Muñoz is known for his enigmatic cast figures. Pulling molds, reference and inspiration from the unsettling, Muñoz often used the forms of ventriloquist dummies, puppets, and punching bag clowns to address notions of isolation, irrationality and despair in the human condition. Architectural components played a key part in many of Muñoz’s installations and arrangements, allowing the artist to manipulate the exhibition space. Cast in bronze or resin, his figures appear ghostly, in gathered groups—twisted faces and hidden motives imbuing his sculptures with a haunting sense of purpose. In a site-specific installation for the Dia Center for the Arts in New York, entitled A Place Called Abroad (1998), Muñoz transformed a 7,500-foot gallery into a maze of forms, at once familiar and otherworldly.
Muñoz’s work has been shown in institutions such as the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Spain, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Museo Nacional de Reina Sofía, Madrid, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and the Tate Modern, London. After his death in 2001, a major retrospective of his work was exhibited at the Tate Modern in 2008. His work was shown at the Venice Biennale, both in 1986 and 1997, Documenta 9 (1992), and the 2000 Sydney Biennale.
