Madrid, Spain, 1953 - Ibiza, Spain, 2001
World renowned Spanish sculptor and graphic artist Juan Muñoz was a member of the artistic group ?Generacion de los 80? in Spain. Although his work is difficult to categorize in a specific movement, it is defined by an important conceptual component, expressing the lack of communication and place, and with it, the negation of the existence of contemporary society.
Muñoz studied architecture at the Polytechnic University in Madrid and later sculpture and printmaking in the UK at Croyden Collage and the Central School of Art and Design, where he met his wife, sculptor Cristina Iglesias. In 1982 he traveled to the United Status to study at the Pratt Institute, where he was given a scholarship. He had his first exhibition in 1984 in Madrid, and subsequently had a series of exhibitions in Bordeaux, Venice, Barcelona, New York, Kassel and London, which won him acknowledgment as one of the most important emerging artists in European sculpture.
In 2000 he won the Nacional Fine Arts Prize in Spain and in June 2001 he opened his exhibition ?Double Bind? at the Tate Modern in London, as the second artist invited through the ?Unilever Series? (after Louise Bourgeois) and the first Spaniard to occupy and transform the impressive Turbine Room space. At the time of his death, he was about to open a retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum de Washington DC, which travelled to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.
Exhibitions
2008 - Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao - MACBA, Barcelona - Tate Modern, London
2007 - Grenoble Museum, Grenoble, France
2006 - Marian Goodman Gallery, New York - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldforf, Germany
2005 - La Casa Encendida, Madrid
2004 - Zwirner&Wirth, New York - Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris
2002 - Galeria Pepe Cobo, Sevilla - Public Art Fund, DorisFreemanPlaza, New York
2001 - Tate Modern, London - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington - The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago - Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston - Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles - Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria - Fundacio 'la Caixa,' Palma de Mallorca - California College of Arts y Crafts Institute, Oliver Art Center, Oakland
2000 - Bernier/Eliades Gallery, Athens - Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna - 20er Haus y k/haus-Kunstlerhaus, Vienna - Kunstmuseum Bonn - Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City - The Tate Gallery of Modern Art, London - Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gantes - 12th Biennale of Sydney - Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek
1999 - Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
1998 - Sala Robayera, Miengo
1997 - Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid - Marco Noire Contemporary Art, Turin - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
1996 - Centro Galego de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago de Compostela - Galerie Jean Bernier, Athens
1995 - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
1993 - Galerie Konrad Fischer, Dusseldorf
Museums and Collections - Museum of Modern Art, New York - Dia:Chelsea, New York - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. - Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, Germany - Middelheim Open-Air Museum for Sculpture, Amberes, Belgium - Migros Museum, Zurich, Switzerland - Museo Patio Herreriano de Valladolid, Spain - Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany - S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst), Gante, Belgium - Speed Art Museum, Kentucky, USA - Tate Gallery, London - The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago - Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands