Juan Muñoz: Artist of the Spanish Transition
The Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz (1953-2001), best known in the UK for his vast but understated Double Bind (Tate Modern 2001), left Spain in 1970, aged 17, and only returned to live there again in 1982, nearly seven years after General Franco’s death. He therefore largely missed the most intense period of Spain’s transition to democracy.
Nevertheless, his art and his career as a whole mirror the transition in revealing ways. This talk will discuss Muñoz’s brilliant adaptation to the new culture of spectacle in Spain in the 1980s and 1990s, and explore some of how his work reanimates collective memories of Spain’s recent traumatic past. Mark will also present his forthcoming book Juan Muñoz: The Politics of Silence (Peter Lang, due out March 2024).
