Juan Muñoz

(Spanish, 1953–2001)

Juan Muñoz was a Spanish sculptor best known for his realistic figures installed in public spaces. Muñoz used a variety media, including paper-maché, resin, bronze, audio recordings, and painting to create his dynamic pieces, combining elements of sculpture and installation to blur the distinctions between reality and art. “I like to think of it as in this kind of space that exists between each of us and the rest of the world,” Muñoz has said. “It's like that moment when you switch off a light in a room and you say: ‘This is me, alone.’ Art is a wonderful place to feel like that.” Born on June 17, 1953 in Madrid, Spain, he grew up in the oppressive environment of Franco’s regime. He went on study in the United Kingdom at both Croydon College and the Central School of Art and Design before enrolling in Pratt Institute in New York on a Fulbright Scholarship. He met his wife, Cristina Iglesias, while studying in England, who is herself an artist working in sculpture and installation. He achieved early success in his career, and notably created a major installation in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Room in 2001 titled Double Bind, which consisted of a complex system of elevators and light interventions. Today, his works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and The Museum of Modern in New York, among others. Muñoz’s influential career was cut short when he died at the age of 48 from a heart attack on August 28, 2001 in Ibiza, Spain.