Oscar MuñOz - Jeu de Paume

Oscar Muñoz, Cortinas de baño [Shower Curtains], 1985–1986. Acrylic on plastic, 5 elements, 190 x 140 cm
and 190 x 70 cm each, various dimensions. Collection Banco de la República
Protographs
03 JUNE – 21 SEPTEMBER 2014
Oscar Muñoz
1, PLACE DE LA CONCORDE · PARIS 8 E · M° CONCORDE
WWW.JEUDEPAUME.ORG
PRESS
KIT
The Jeu de Paume, a place of exploration for the image in all its forms, is celebrating its tenth
birthday this year. To mark the event, it is offering visitors the chance to see the exhibitions
devoted to Kati Horna, Oscar Muñoz and Kapwani Kiwanga free of charge on Saturday 7th and
Sunday 8th June 2014.
Free admission to all from 11am to 7pm
2
Oscar Muñoz
Protographs
03 JUNE – 21 SEPTEMBER 2014
❙ Curators
José Roca and María Wills Londoño (adjunct curator)
❙ Partners
Exhibition co-produced by the Museo de Arte del Banco de la República (Bogotá) and the Jeu de Paume (Paris)
As part of the Latin American and Caribbean Week.
The Jeu de Paume receives a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
It gratefully acknowledges support from Neuflize Vie, its global partner.
❙ Media Partners
A Nous Paris, l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, de l’air, l’Officiel Hommes
Oscar Muñoz, El juego de las probabilidades [The Game of Probabilities], 2007. 12 colour photographs, 47 x 40 cm each with frame. Courtesy of the artist and
Sicardi Gallery, Houston
4
About The Exhibition
❙
By José Roca & María Wills Londoño, curators
Through a multifaceted body of work that moves freely between photography, printmaking, drawing, installation, video
and sculpture, eliminating the borderlines between these disciplines through innovative practices, Oscar Muñoz (Popayán,
Colombia, 1951) explores the capacity of images to retain memory.
In 1826, for the first time in history the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce succeeded in fixing the elusive image produced
by the camera obscura, a device known since antiquity. In contrast to painting or drawing, the camera obscura was
able to obtain an image from life without the assistance of the human hand and in real time: what it could not do was
freeze it or fix it onto a support in order to extract it from the passing of time. It could thus be said that the essence of the
photographic act does not lie in taking the image but in permanently fixing it. What, then, is the status of the image in the
instant prior to the moment when it is fixed for posterity?
If the ontology of photography lies in fixing a moving image for all time, extracting it from life, we might say that Oscar
Muñoz’s work is located in the temporal space prior (or subsequent) to the true decisive moment when the image is fixed:
that proto-moment when the image is finally about to become photography. In that sense, it could be said that Muñoz’s
work is protographic.
5
Oscar Muñoz, Línea del destino [Line of Destiny], 2006. Single-channel video 4:3, black and white, no sound, 1 min 54 s. Courtesy of the artist
6
THE exHIBItion
Born in 1951 in Popayán (Colombia), Oscar Muñoz is regarded as one of the country’s most important
contemporary artists, whilst also garnering attention on the international art scene. A graduate of the
Escuela de Bellas Artes in Cali, he has built up over a period of four decades a body of work whose
images deal with the realm of memory, loss and the precarious nature of human life. Muñoz’s work defies
systematic classification because he works in so many different media: photography, printmaking, drawing,
installations, video and sculpture.
“Protographs“ (a term coined to evoke the instant just before or just after that split-second when the
photographic image is captured and frozen for ever) presents his major series grouped by theme. These
themes poetically and metaphorically juxtapose Muñoz’s own past and the different material states of
the image. For example, he combines the dissolution, deterioration or disintegration of the image with the
inherent fragility of memory and the impossibility of making time stand still; or the image’s evaporation and
transformation with the tension between rationality and chaos in our urban societies. Finally, in the main
part of his work, he creates ephemeral images that, as they disappear, invite the spectator to share in an
experience that is simultaneously rational and sensual.
Oscar Muñoz began his career in the 1970s in Cali in a period when a whirlwind of cultural and cross-disciplinary
activity saw the emergence of a generation of writers, photographers and filmmakers who today play a leading
role in the contemporary art scene (with Carlos Mayolo, Luis Ospina, Fernell Franco and Andrés Caicedo to name
but a few). At that time, Muñoz was drawing with charcoal on large-format supports presenting a cast of sad and
sometimes sordid characters with a deep emotional charge. The main characteristics of his work emerged at an early
stage. These include a profound and tireless interest in social questions, an original approach to materials, the use of
photography as an aid to memory and the exploiting of the dramatic possibilities afforded by the play of shadow
and light in defining the image. Moreover, the artist developed a phenomenological approach to minimalism by
insisting on the relationship between the artwork, the spectator and the surrounding exhibition space.
In the mid-1980s, Oscar Muñoz moved away from traditional artistic methods and began to experiment with
innovative processes that created a real interactive exchange with the spectator. This was the time of a radical
reassessment of his artistic practices, whether drawing, printmaking, or photography, and a questioning of the
relationship between the artwork and its surroundings. He abandoned traditional formats and techniques, whilst
preserving something of their roots and wellsprings, to investigate ephemerality, highlighting the very essence of the
materials themselves and their poetic associations. His use of the fundamental elements – water, air and fire – refers
to the processes, the cycles and the transcendental manifestations of life, our very existence and death itself. “My
work attempts to understand why the past and the present are so full of violent acts,” says the artist. By choosing to
use a diverse selection of media and to apply innovative and unique processes, Oscar Muñoz blurs the boundaries
between artistic disciplines.
7
Oscar Muñoz, Ambulatorio [Ambulatory], 1994-2008. Aerial photograph enclosed in security glass, wood and aluminium, 36 units, 100 x 100 cm each.
Courtesy O.K Centrum, Linz
8
Exhibited Works
The “Protographs” exhibition showcases a career that has lasted nearly forty years. It presents series of
works grouped around the artist’s major themes, starting with his works on paper and his series of largeformat hyperrealist drawings in charcoal (1976–1981) – bearing witness to his deep interest in social
context – and the drawings and engravings that he started making in the 1980s, which marked the
relinquishing of paper for an exploration of unconventional materials and processes (printing on damp
plastic, the use of sugar and coffee, etc.); continuing with his experiments in the 1990s and 2000s on the
stability of the image and its relationship to the processes of memory; and including his latest works
(2009–2014), characterised by a continual process of appearance and disappearance, including a new
work produced specifically for the exhibition.
CALI-DOSCOPE: CITY FRAGMENTS
Muñoz emerged on the Colombian art scene with his series of large-format hyperrealist drawings in charcoal on
paper that revealed his interest in the social implications of empty or deteriorating spaces. This group includes
drawings from the series entitled Inquilinatos [Tenement Houses] (1979) and Interiores [Interiors] (1980–1981). Also on
display are works referring to Cali’s urban life, such as Ambulatorio [Ambulatory] (1994), El Puente [The Bridge] (2004),
Archivo Porcontacto [Bycontact Archive] (2004–2008), which are images of a specific period and specific places in
the city, and A través del cristal [Through the Glass] (2008–2009), the latter a way of introducing an absent cultural
reference through sound.
Ambulatorio [Ambulatory], 1994 (aerial photograph enclosed in security glass, wood
and aluminium, 36 units, 100 x 100 cm each)
Cali recurs in Muñoz’s work as a contextual reference or a support. This is literally
the case with Ambulatorio, an aerial photograph of the city blown up to a
monumental scale and laid out in a regular grid. Each segment of the photograph
is fixed to a piece of security glass, which breaks into pieces when the viewer
Ambulatorio [Ambulatory], 1994.
Courtesy of the artist and Sicardi Gallery, Houston
walks on the work. Each break creates another random mesh of lines over the
urban image of a chaotic city in which rational planning and the unstructured
coexist in a way typical of all modern South American cities.
9
A través del cristal [Through the Glass], 2008–2009 (installation consisting of
9 videos, colour, sound, 46 min 4 s, 29 min 30 s, 18 min 34 s, 30 min 31 s, 56 min
27 s, 119 min 50 s, 43 min 36 s, 61 min 36 s and 61 min36 s, on 9 LCD screens
with photo frames, various dimensions)
In A través del cristal, Muñoz used family photographs that he found in various
houses in Cali, filming them with a video camera. The camera, with its technical
impersonality, recorded what the eye/brain pairing tends to reject or block out,
in this case the reflection on the glass protecting the photos. In these videos
comprising apparently still images displayed in frames identical to those of
the original photographs, the portraits become a support for the contextual
A través del cristal [Through the Glass], 2008–2009.
Courtesy of the artist
information of the place in which they were originally located.
Archivo porcontacto [Bycontact Archive], 2004–2008 (digital prints on paper,
wooden tables and glass, 6 prints: 200 x 30 cm each one)
In collaboration with Mauricio Prieto
As in many Colombian cities, Cali had a tradition of street photographers who
plied their trade in public spaces, taking photographs of passers-by. Most
of these photographs were never bought by the subjects. These unsolicited
photographs were the working-class opposite of the “studio photograph” of
the wealthy classes: photographs of anonymous people taken by anonymous
photographers and thus a snapshot of the social body. Muñoz acquired several
archives that had belonged to these photographers and patiently organised the
Archivo porcontacto [Bycontact Archive], 2004–2008.
Courtesy of the artist
material, finding relationships between the subjects photographed, identifying
some of the people who reappear in a number of the images. A selection of
them were projected, as a public event, onto the river from the Ortiz Bridge in
Cali, the place where most of these photographs would originally have been
taken. The result is a collective portrait of the city at a particular moment in its
history.
10
THE SUPPORT RECONSIDERED
Having achieved international renown as an exceptional draughtsman, in the 1980s Muñoz gradually abandoned
paper as a support and experimented with new techniques of drawing and printmaking, using unconventional
materials and supports such as acrylic applied to damp plastic and charcoal dust on water. This group includes the
series Cortinas de Baño [Shower Curtains] (1985–1986), Tiznados [Tainted] (1990), Narcisos secos [Dry Narcissi] (1994–
1995) and Simulacros [Simulacra] (1999).
Cortinas de baño [Shower Curtains], 1985–1986 (acrylic on plastic, 5 elements, 190 x
140 cm and 190 x 70 cm each, various dimensions)
In Cortinas de baño Muñoz experimented for the first time with an unconventional
support, in this case an everyday plastic shower curtain, in order to construct
an image from a photograph transferred onto a silkscreen mesh. In the printing
process, executed with an airbrush through previously prepared silkscreen, the
Cortinas de baño [Shower Curtains], 1985–1986.
Collection Banco de la República
image was transferred onto an unstable surface, with the artist preventing the
pigment from being totally fixed by sprinkling water on it.
Narcisos (en proceso) [Narcissi (in process)], 1995–2011 (charcoal dust and paper on
water, Plexiglas, 6 elements, 10 x 50 x 50 cm each, overall dimensions: 10 x 70 x 400 cm)
Narcisos was a key series in the artist’s quest to dematerialise the support of the
photographic image. Muñoz developed a new technique unprecedented in the
history of art and probably never to be encountered again – that of printing on
water. The earliest photographic images emerged from water, from the chemical
baths that fixed the silver salts in different gradations of intensity produced by
the action of light. The support was an incidental necessity. Muñoz has referred
to the three phases in the process of Narcissi as allegories of an individual’s
Narcisos (en proceso) [Narcissi (in process)], 1995–2011
Courtesy of the artist
progress through life: creation, at the moment when the charcoal dust touches
the surface of the water; the changes that come about during evaporation;
and death, at the moment when the dried out dust finally settles at the bottom
of the container. The result, which the artist has called Narcisos secos, is both
the final image and the death of the process: the remains of a photograph that
possessed a life after it was fixed for posterity. In this sense, Dry Narcissi are the
record of a double death of the image.
11
Narciso [Narcissus], 2001 (single-channel video 4:3, colour, sound, 3 min )
Muñoz’s first work in video was Narciso, in which he dramatically presented the
processes developed in his Narcissi of the 1990s (in which the evaporation was
invisible to the naked eye) by making the water disappear in a few minutes. As
in those earlier works, a self-portrait floats on the surface of the water but the
drain in the sink and the sound of running water foretell for the viewer what
the image’s final fate will be. In reality, there are two images here: that of the
subject and that of its shadow on the white bottom of the basin. The images
gradually come closer together, as if to suggest that life is a constant quest for
Narciso [Narcissus], 2001. Courtesy of the artist
self-understanding. However, at the moment when the two images are about
to coincide, it is already too late: they fuse into a single distorted stain that
disappears down the drain.
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again], 2004 (single-channel video projection 4:3, colour,
no sound, 28 min )
How can photography not stop time and how can the portrait not freeze the
image but rather prolong its existence? A hand attempts to outline the identifying
features of a portrait, but the medium used (water) and the support (a slab of
cement onto which strong sunlight falls) ensure that this simple task cannot be
successfully carried out. By the time the brush has rendered part of the fleeting
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again], 2004. Courtesy of the artist
self-portrait the rest of it has already evaporated, but the hand continues,
oblivious, in its ceaseless process, seemingly motivated by an obstinate tenacity.
Muñoz entitled this work Re/trato (meaning “Portrait” in Spanish, but also, when
the syllables are divided, “I try again”). As in earlier works, this one refers to
the myth of Narcissus, who died in a vain attempt to obtain the reflection of his
unrecognised self. It also refers to the story of Sisyphus, condemned to perform
the same task for eternity in the knowledge that his efforts will be fruitless, for just
as he is about to reach his goal fate obliges him to return to the starting point.
12
THE UNSTABLE IMAGE
In the 1990s, Muñoz analysed the instability of the image and its relationship to the processes of memory. This group
includes works and series such as Biografías [Biographies] (2002), Proyecto para un memorial [Project for a Memorial]
(2005) and Línea del destino [Line of Destiny] (2006).
Biografías [Biographies], 2002 (3 video projections, black and white, sound, 2 min
48 s, 2 min 30 s, 2 min 34 s, on wooden screens, drains and loudspeakers, various
dimensions)
Biografías is similar to Narciso with regard to the fate of the image, but has two
distinguishing features. Firstly, instead of his self-portrait, Muñoz uses portraits of
other people, which are anonymous images taken from obituaries, people who
Biografías [Biographies], 2002. Courtesy of the artist
are no longer living. The other important difference lies in the editing: the image
becomes distorted to the point of disappearing as a shapeless stain down the
drain, but reappears when the film is reversed and becomes the portrait again.
As André Bazin stated: “No one believes any more in the ontological identity
between model and image, but everyone agrees that the image helps us to
remember the subject and preserve it from a second, spiritual death.” In a social
context in which the verb “to disappear” has a clearly political connotation and
in which each act of violence is rapidly replaced in the news by the latest one,
the death of the individual tends to become lost in statistics. These anonymous
portraits refuse to fall into the double death implied by forgetting.
Proyecto para un memorial [Project for a Memorial], 2005 (5 video projections, colour,
no sound, 7 min 30 s each)
The eternally frustrating or postponed process of self-definition expressed in
Portrait/I Try Again is extended to the public realm in Proyecto para un memorial,
in which a hand attempts to draw the faces of five people, each on a different
Proyecto para un memorial [Project for a Memorial], 2005.
Courtesy of the artist
video screen. The act of memorialising presented here consists in opposing the
process of historical oblivion, using the persistence of the image as a “record of
offences” presented to the State from the public realm: extracted from the great
body of statistics, these individuals refuse to disappear from history.
13
IMPRINTS
Over the last decade, Muñoz has created a series of works on the indicative relationship between the object and
its image, making use of contact printing, a characteristic printmaking process. This was the case with La mirada del
Cíclope [The Cyclops’ Gaze] (2001-2002), Intervalos (mientras respiro) [Intervals (While I Breathe)] (2004) and Paístiempo
[Countrytime] (2007), as well as series from a number of other periods.
Aliento [Breath], 1995 (metal mirrors, screen-printed with grease, 7 mirrors, diameter:
20 cm each)
The series Aliento comprises portraits printed in photo-silkscreen with grease on
small round metal mirrors located at eye level. The mirrors initially seem blank
and the printed image only reveals itself when the viewer, having recognised
himself/herself, breathes onto the circular mirror. During this brief moment the
reflected image is replaced by the printed image (photographs taken from
obituaries) of a deceased person who fleetingly returns through the viewer’s
breath.
Aliento [Breath], 1995. Courtesy of the artist
La mirada del cíclope [The Cyclops’ Gaze], 2002 (digital print on paper,
6 photographs, 50 x 50 cm each one)
La mirada del cíclope, in which the subject is considered in relation to death, uses
one of the oldest techniques of portraiture and printmaking: a mould made by
direct contact, in this case of the artist’s own face. This sculptural object (inspired
La mirada del cíclope [The Cyclops’ Gaze], 2002.
Courtesy of the artist
by the ancient Roman tradition of funerary masks) becomes two-dimensional
when it is captured by the camera’s single eye (hence the title). Lacking
references to volume, the viewer’s eye cannot decide if the object represented
is concave or convex, in a play of perceptual opposites: negative/positive,
presence/absence, reality or illusions. Quoting Pierre Bourdieu, Muñoz has noted
that “the imagines of ancient Rome are exactly equivalent to the social nature of
some modern photographs; they play an important role in the tortuous act of
mourning: we accept a reality by ‘becoming accustomed to the unreality of its
images’.”
Intervalos (mientras respiro) [Intervals (While I Breathe)], 2004 (drawing with cigarette
on paper, 6 drawings, 60 x 50 cm each)
Intervalos (mientras respiro) are self-portraits made by Muñoz using a cigarette to
Intervalos (mientras respiro) [Intervals (While I Breathe)], 2004.
Courtesy of the artist
“draw” while he smokes. The action of puffing on the cigarette increases the heat
from which the image will be made, giving life to it, while the body breathing the
smoke in comes one step closer to death.
14
The work takes shape through the flow from the body to the hand, from the hand
to the image and from the image back to the hand in a disturbing metaphor of the
all-too-brief interval between life and death.
Paístiempo [Countrytime], 2007 (pyroengravings on newspaper on wooden tables,
12 newspapers of 10 pages, 56 x 33 cm each)
Although not executed with artistic printmaking processes, the works Intervalos
(mientras respiro) and Paístiempo make use of a commercial aspect of this medium,
namely the odt matrix characteristic of photo-lithography. In Paístiempo, the
first pages of the Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo and the Cali newspaper El País
are reproduced with the help of a pyroengraving tool, dot by dot. This work
is viewed by turning the pages like a newspaper, but as the image is read it
loses definition until it completely disappears. In the flow of information that we
Paístiempo [Countrytime], 2007. Courtesy of the artist, Cali
receive every day, news items become history the moment they are printed and
thus almost immediately obsolete.
Impresiones débiles [Weak Impressions], 2011 (charcoal dust print on methacrylate,
4 elements, 85 x 73.5 cm each)
The earliest successful images taken by Niépce were proto-photographs that did
not survive intact as images because the light that had created them continued
to affect them until they eventually succumbed to darkness in an inexorable
fade to black. This is what happens in film photography when a photograph
is not properly rinsed and the developing agent continues to act, or when the
Impresiones débiles [Weak Impressions], 2011.
Galerie mor. charpentier, Paris
photographic paper is directly exposed to the action of light. However, the
image can also move towards clarity. In Impresiones débiles, Muñoz employs
photographs of great historical and political significance for Colombia and
subjects them to a process that makes them seem like “washed out” photos in
which over-exposure to light has made the image deteriorate to the point of
near invisibility. The works that make up this series are in fact prints rather than
photographs, given that they are silkscreens made with charcoal dust on acrylic.
The variable distance between the silkscreen mesh and the support allows the
artist to single out a different element from the original photograph in each print,
making it more highly defined than the rest. The “variable focus” in this series
questions another of the supposedly essential characteristics of photography,
namely the camera’s systematic, technical objectivity in relation to its subjects.
15
THE IMAGE IN FLUX
In his most recent works, Muñoz depicts images in a process of continual appearance and disappearance. These
are subtle impressions with varying emphases on the different parts of the image that are literally in flux and cannot
be fixed, such as those produced by a camera obscura. This section includes the video Cíclope [Cyclops] (2011), the
installation Editor solitario [Solitary Editor] and the work Sedimentaciones [Sedimentations] (2011), the latter comprising
three tables with projections of documents that are constantly created and destroyed. The exhibition ends with the
highly personal Fundido al blanco [Fade to White] (2010).
Fundido a blanco (dos retratos) [Fade to White (Two Portraits)], 2010 (HD Video,
colour, sound, 7 min 40 s)
Fundido a blanco (dos retratos) is an autobiographical work: a family portrait with
Muñoz behind the camera, constituting the third side of a temporal triangle
that includes his mother and father. It is, in other words, a memorial. Rather than
Fundido a blanco (dos retratos) [Fade to White (Two Portraits)], 2010.
Courtesy of the artist
making their features more clear, the strong light that bathes the scene makes
them imprecise and ethereal. Muñoz has referred to the intense light in Cali at a
certain time of day, when people seem to “disintegrate”, and also to the blinding
brilliance of the sun when the artist came out after seeing a film at the city’s film
club. The central figure in Fundido a blanco momentarily falls asleep now and
then, entering into the light. Rather than fixing that figure at a precise moment
of its existence, in the manner of a photographic portrait or snapshot, Muñoz
creates a portrait that develops in time. Fundido a blanco is one of the artist’s
most moving works, an image that touches the viewer. Its power may perhaps
lie in the fact that for the first time in his extensive output, we are here seeing a
specific subject rather than the generic representation of one.
Cíclope [Cyclops], 2011 (HD video projection 16:9, black and white, sound, 12 min)
In Cíclope Muñoz makes use of a new device in his constant quest to un-fix the
image, namely that of dissolving it. This video shows a circular white container
with a black circle in the centre. A closer look reveals it to be a lavatory
Cíclope [Cyclops], 2011. Courtesy of the artist Murnot
bowl with swirling water in it. At intervals a hand appears in the image and
places a photograph in the lavatory, its image immediately disappearing. The
accumulation of dissolved images gradually tinges the water, creating a vast
black eye that devours every image that enters it. This eye is also the camera’s
single eye, which focuses on and captures everything. In its incessant flow,
the circle of black pigment is made up of all the photographs that have ever
been or will be: a profound “protographic” magma. Cyclops, this eye/camera
that devours everything, is a reflection on the relationship between seeing and
remembering and between the eye and memory.
16
Sedimentaciones [Sedimentations], 2011 (2 HD video projections, colour, sound, 42 min
27 s, 41 min 42 s, on wooden tables)
The strategy of dissolving the image reappears in Sedimentaciones, a
photographic development table on which there are numerous photographs
Sedimentaciones [Sedimentations], 2011. Courtesy of the artist
arranged in lines, with various blank sheets between them. The photos are
extremely varied in nature, ranging from universally known images to others that
are very specific to a Colombian context, personal portraits by the artist and
anonymous, generic images. There are two developing trays at opposite corners.
A hand takes a photograph from the table and puts it in a plastic tray filled
with liquid in which the image dissolves. The paper emerges white and is then
randomly placed in one of the lines. On the other side of the table another hand
takes up one of the empty sheets and slides it into another tray. On taking out
the sheet, the image has magically re-formed on it and the hand places it in the
line of photographs. The process starts again in the other corner. Through this
alternation we thus witness the ceaseless life and death of the image.
El Rastro de la Melancolia, 2014 (3 HD video projections, colour, sound, 39 min 59 s
each)
WAITING FOR THE TEXT
El Rastro de la Melancolia, 2014. Courtesy of the artist. Coproduction:
Jeu de Paume, Paris and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de
Monterrey
17
Oscar Muñoz, La mirada del cíclope [The Cyclops’ Gaze], 2001-2002. Digital print on paper, 6 photographs, 50 x 50 cm each. Courtesy of the artist
18
Oscar MUÑOZ
Born in 1951 in Popayan (Colombia). Lives and works in Cali (Colombia).
❙
Solo Exhibitions (since 2002)
2014
Oscar Muñoz. Protographies, Jeu de Paume, Paris, France.
Oscar Muñoz. Protografías, Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia.
2013
Oscar Muñoz. Protografías. Museo de Arte de Lima, MALI, Lima, Peru.
2012
Ambulatorio (Draw Down the Walls: Oscar Muñoz), Belfast, Ireland.
Oscar Muñoz, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, United States.
Oscar Muñoz. Protografias, Museo de Antioquia, Medillon, Colombia.
Oscar Muñoz. Protografias, MALBA Colección Constantini, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Beunos Aires, Argentina.
2011
Oscar Muñoz: Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial, SECCA, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, United States.
Biografías (Biographies), The Madness & Arts Festival, Johan Deumens Haarlem Gallery, Netherlands.
Protofotografías, Museo del Bando de la Republica Bogota, Colombia.
2010
Volverse aire, PhotoEspana 2010 / PHE10, Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain.
Anarchive, Galerie mor.charpentier, Paris, France.
2009 Biografías, Art Gallery the South New Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Oscar Muñoz, Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden.
Oscar Muñoz: Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial, UQAM Gallery. Montreal, Canada.
Mirror Image, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts - PICA, Perth, Australia.
2008
Oscar Muñoz: Imprints for a Fleeting Memorial, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada.
Mirror Image, Institute of International Visual Arts - INIVA, London, United Kingdom.
Documentos de la amnesia, Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, MEIAC, Badajoz, Spain.
Inmemorial, Korea Foundation, Seoul, South Korea.
2006
Dissolutions et Fantasmagories, Municipal Museum of Guayaquil, Guayaquil, Equator.
Biographies, Cloître de Santa Clara, Alcuadrado Gallery. Cartagene, Colombia.
2005
Proyecto para un memorial, Iturralde Gallery, Los Angeles, United States.
Proyecto para un memorial, Video Art, Fair LOOP, Barcelona, Spain.
2004 Trois projections vidéo, Alcuadrado Gallery, Madrid, Spain.
Ambulatorio Re/trato. Fotofest, Sicardi Gallery. Houston, United States.
Trans-figurations, Iturralde Gallery, Los Angeles, United States.
The ends of Process, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, United States.
Eclipse, Santa Fé Gallery, Planetario Distrital. Bogotá, Colombia.
19
Oscar Muñoz, Narciso [Narcissus], 2001. Single-channel video 4:3, colour, sound, 3 min. Courtesy of the artist
20
❙ Group Exhibitions (selection, since 2002)
2014
America Latina, 1960-2013, Photographies, Museo Amparo, Mexico, Mexico.
2013
America Latina, 1960-2013, Photographies, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris, France.
Nocturnes de Colombia (By night in Colombia), musée du quai Branly, Paris, France.
Cantos Cuentos Colombianos, Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Adquisicións e Incorporacións Recentes, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, CGAC,
Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
19 New Acquisitions. Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, New York, United States
Ephemeral, Adelphi University, Garden City, United States.
2012
A New Minimalism, University Art Gallery, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Six lines of flight, SFMOMA, San Francisco, United States.
XVIII Bienal de Arte Paiz, Guatemala, Guatemala.
Mediations Biennale 2012, Poznan, Poland.
High Line Art, E-flux, New York, United States.
2011
Aschemunder, Luftschutzkeller im Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany.
Reflections of the Buddha, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States.
Blink ! Light, Sound and Moving Image, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, United States.
Tallinn Print Triennial, Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia.
About Face: Portraiture as Subject, The Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States.
2010
The Graphic Unconscious, Philagrafika 2010. Philadelphia, Museum of Art, United States.
Cosmopolitan Routes: Houston Collects Latin American Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, United States.
Anguish, New Vision Series, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, United States.
Changing the Focus: The Art of Latin American Photography (1990-2005), Molaa, Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, United States.
Desire and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman, Kunstmuseum Berne, Switzerland.
2009
Silent, Hiroshima MOCA, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan.
Desenhos: A a Z, Coleccao Madeira Corporate Service, Museu da Cidade, Lisboa, Portugal.
Oscar Muñoz, Inmemorial, Herzliya Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel.
Oscar Muñoz, OK, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz, Austria.
Video Drawing, Israel Museum, Jersualem, Israel.
North Looks South: Building the Latin American Art Collection, MFAH, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, United States.
Crónicas de la ausencia, Oscar Muñoz et Rosângela Rennó Museo Tamayo, Mexico, Mexico.
2008
Art is for the spirit: Works from the UBS Art Collection, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan.
The Disappeared, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota, Bogota, Colombia.
Cantos/Cuentos Colombianos, Casa Daros, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Moving Horizons: The UBS Art Collection 1960s to the present day, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China.
21
Oscar Muñoz, Sedimentaciones [Sedimentations], 2011. 2 HD video projections, colour, sound, 42 min 27 s, 41 min 42 s, on wooden tables
Courtesy of the artist
22
Resonant Visions, Contemporary video from Latin America, Sebastián Díaz-Morales, Oscar Muñoz, Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia.
2007
52e Biennale de Venise, Think with the Senses–Feel with the Mind, Arsenal. Venice, Italia.
Phantasmagoria Specters of Absence, Biblioteca Luis angel Arango. Bogota, Colombia.
In someone else’s skin, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York, United States.
The Hours, Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia.
Turbulence: The Auckland Triennial Auckland, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. Auckland, New Zealand.
The Disappeared, Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, United States.
Political-poetical, 14th Tallinn Print Triennial, Tallinn, Estonia.
Project for a memorial, Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, United States.
2006
En las fronteras / In borderlines, Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain.
Analog Animation, The Drawing Center, New York, United States.
Analog Animation, Lugar a dudas, Cali, Colombia.
Ist Bienal del Aire, Museum of Contemporary Art, Caracas, Venezuela.
Estrecho Dudoso, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Jose, Costa Rica.
2005
Cantos, Cuentos Colombianos, Daros- Latinamerica, Zurich, Switzerland.
New Acquisitions, La Caixa Foundation, Barcelona, Spain.
51e Biennale de Venise, Instituto Italo-latinoamericano Pavillion, Venice, Italia.
Prague Contemporary Art Bienal, National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic.
Imagen + Realidad, Galeria Alcuadrado, Bogota, Colombia.
Open Maps – Latin American Photography 1991-2002, Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland.
The Disappeared, North Dakota Museum of Art, Grand Forks, United States.
2004
VIII Bienal de Cuenca, Cuenca, Equator.
Retratos: 2000 years of Latin American Portraiture, Museo del Barrio, New York, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, United States.
39 Salon Nacional de Artistas, Bogota, Colombia.
Trienal Poligrafica de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Porto Rico.
2003
Face Value, The Americas Society, New York, United States.
Colombia 2003, Buenos Aires Modern Art Museum, Argentina.
SHOW, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphie, United States.
Muñoz, Rojas, Herran, Tres Artistas Alcuadrado, Galeria Alcuadrado, Bogota, Colombia.
Mapas Abiertos, Telefonica, Madrid, Spain.
Stretch, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada.
2002
VIII Bienal de Arte de Bogotá, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia.
Entrelineas, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain.
Focus on the Figure, Selection from the permanent collection and new acquisitions, Miami Art Museum, Miami, United States.
Time/Frame, Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, United States.
Oxygen, White Box, New York, United States.
23
Oscar Muñoz, Aliento [Breath], 1995. Metal mirrors, screen-printed with grease, 7 mirrors, diameter: 20 cm each. Courtesy of the artist
24
❙ Collections
Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, United States.
Daros Collection, Zurich, Switzerland.
Miami Art Museum, Miami, United States.
Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Houston, United States.
MEIAC Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo Extremadura, Spain.
Fundación “la Caixa”, Barcelona, Spain.
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., United States.
Caja Houston FL Centro Cultural Cajastur de Asturias Gijón, Spain.
Fundación El Monte Caja de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain.
Colección Cisneros, Caracas, Venezuela.
Colección Sofía Imber, Caracas, Venezuela.
Teor/ética, San Jose, Costa Rica.
Museo del Barrio,New York, United States.
Museum of the Americas,Washington D.C., United States.
Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, United States.
Orange County Museum,Orange County, United States.
The Akron Museum, Ohio, United States.
Museo de Arte Universidad Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia.
Banco de la Republica, Bogotá, Colombia.
Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá, Colombia.
Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia.
Museo de Arte Moderno de Pereira, Pereira, Colombia.
25
EVENTS AND PUBLICATION
❙ Catalogue
The exhibition catalogue will cover the artist’s entire career.
Forewords by Marta Gili and by José Darío Uribe; texts by José Roca and Emmanuel Alloa; conversation between
María Wills Londoño and the artist.
Co-edition Jeu de Paume / Filigranes Éditions / Museo del Banco de la República
176 pages, bilingual French/English, €35
❙ Tours and Cultural Activities
Every last Tuesday of the month, 11am to 9pm
Young Visitors’ Tuesday Tours: free admission for students and visitors under 26 and guided tours of the
exhibitions with a Jeu de Paume lecturer
Wednesdays and Saturdays, 12.30pm
Rendez-vous du Jeu de Paume: tour of the exhibition by a Jeu de Paume lecturer, free on presentation of an
admission ticket
❙ Family Activities
Saturday, 3.30pm (except the last of the month)
Family Tours
Every Saturday at 3.30pm, except for the last one of the month, Jeu de Paume lecturers receive children (aged 7
to 11) and their parents or accompanying adults for an encounter with images. Several different tours are organized
throughout the year, focusing on images exhibited in the rooms of the Jeu de Paume, projected images, published
images and networked images in the educational area. The youngest also have access to books, images and websites in the educational area.
Duration: 1 hour. Free on presentation of an admission ticket, free for the under-11s
Reservation: 01 47 03 12 41 / [email protected]
26
press ImageS
❙ Conditions For Use
The reproduction and representation of the images in the selection below is only authorized and free of royalty fees for the purposes of promoting the exhibition at the Jeu de Paume and only for its duration.
OM 01
Oscar Muñoz
Sin título [Untitled]
1990
Charcoal on gesso and wood
4 elements, 30 x 26 cm each
Collection Jaime Beltrán, Cali
OM 02
Oscar Muñoz
Cortinas de baño [Shower Curtains]
1985–1986
Acrylic on plastic
5 elements, 190 x 140 cm and 190 x 70 cm each
Various dimensions
Collection Banco de la República, Bogotá
OM 03
Oscar Muñoz
Ambulatorio [Ambulatory]
1994
Aerial photograph enclosed in security glass,
wood and aluminium
36 units, 100 x 100 cm each
Courtesy O.K Centrum, Linz
27
OM 04
Oscar Muñoz
Ambulatorio [Ambulatory]
1994
Aerial photograph enclosed in security glass,
wood and aluminium
36 units, 100 x 100 cm each
Courtesy of the artist and Sicardi Gallery, Houston
OM 05
Oscar Muñoz
Aliento [Breath]
1995
Metal mirrors, screen-printed with grease, 7 mirrors,
diameter: 20 cm each
Courtesy of the artist
OM 06
Oscar Muñoz
Narcisos (en proceso) [Narcissi (in process)]
1995–2011
Charcoal dust and paper on water, Plexiglas
6 elements, 10 x 50 x 50 cm each
OM 07
Oscar Muñoz
Narcisos (en proceso) [Narcissi (in process)]
1995–2011
Charcoal dust and paper on water, Plexiglas
6 elements, 10 x 50 x 50 cm each
Overall dimensions: 10 x 70 x 400 cm
Courtesy of the artist
28
OM 08
Oscar Muñoz
Simulacros [Simulacra]
1999
Charcoal dust on water, Plexiglas containers, halogen
lamps, taps, pipes and tank
3 containers, 17 x 100 x 100 cm each
Overall dimensions: 200 x 400 x 150 cm
Collection Banco de la República, Bogotá
OM 09
Oscar Muñoz
Simulacros [Simulacra]
1999
Charcoal dust on water, Plexiglas containers, halogen
lamps, taps, pipes and tank
3 containers, 17 x 100 x 100 cm each
Overall dimensions: 200 x 400 x 150 cm
Courtesy Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos
Aires–MALBA
OM 10
Oscar Muñoz
Pixeles [Pixels]
1999–2000
Coffee stains on sugar cubes, Plexiglas
9 panels 35 x 35 x 3 cm each
Collection Banco de la República, Bogotá
OM 11
Oscar Muñoz
Pixeles [Pixels]
1999–2000
Coffee stains on sugar cubes, Plexiglas
9 panels 35 x 35 x 3 cm each
Courtesy of the artist and Sicardi Gallery, Houston
29
OM 12
Oscar Muñoz
Narciso [Narcissus]
2001
Single-channel video 4:3, colour, sound, 3 min
Courtesy of the artist
OM 13
Oscar Muñoz
Narciso [Narcissus]
2001
Single-channel video 4:3, colour, sound, 3 min
Courtesy of the artist
OM 14
Oscar Muñoz
La mirada del cíclope [The Cyclops’ Gaze]
2001-2002
Digital print on paper
6 photographs, 50 x 50 cm each
Courtesy of the artist
OM 15
Oscar Muñoz
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again]
2004
Single-channel video projection 4:3, colour, no sound,
28 min
Courtesy of the artist
30
OM 16
Oscar Muñoz
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again]
2004
Single-channel video projection 4:3, colour, no sound,
28 min
Courtesy of the artist
OM 17
Oscar Muñoz
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again]
2004
Single-channel video projection 4:3, colour, no sound,
28 min
Courtesy of the artist
OM 18
Oscar Muñoz
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again]
2004
Single-channel video projection 4:3, colour, no sound,
28 min
Courtesy of the artist
OM 19
Oscar Muñoz
Re/trato [Portrait/I Try Again]
2004
Single-channel video projection 4:3, colour, no sound,
28 min
Courtesy of the artist
31
OM 20
Oscar Muñoz
Línea del destino [Line of Destiny]
2006
Single-channel video 4:3, black and white, no sound,
1 min 54 s
Courtesy of the artist
OM 21
Oscar Muñoz
Línea del destino [Line of Destiny]
2006
Single-channel video 4:3, black and white, no sound,
1 min 54 s
Courtesy of the artist
OM 22
Oscar Muñoz
Línea del destino [Line of Destiny]
2006
Single-channel video 4:3, black and white, no sound,
1 min 54 s
Courtesy of the artist
OM 23
Oscar Muñoz
El juego de las probabilidades [The Game of Probabilities]
2007
12 colour photographs
47 x 40 cm each with frame
Courtesy of the artist and Sicardi Gallery, Houston
32
OM 24
Oscar Muñoz
Horizonte [Horizon]
2011
Charcoal dust print on methacrylate
4 elements, 85 x 73.5 cm each
Galerie mor·charpentier, Paris
OM 25
Oscar Muñoz
Horizonte [Horizon]
2011
Charcoal dust print on methacrylate
4 elements, 85 x 73.5 cm each
Galerie mor·charpentier, Paris
OM 26
Oscar Muñoz
Sedimentaciones [Sedimentations]
2011
2 HD video projections, colour, sound, 42 min 27 s,
41 min 42 s, on wooden tables
Courtesy of the artist
OM 26
Oscar Muñoz
Sedimentaciones [Sedimentations]
2011
2 HD video projections, colour, sound, 42 min 27 s,
41 min 42 s, on wooden tables
Courtesy of the artist
33
Jeu de Paume
The Jeu de Paume is an arts center with a strong reputation for exhibiting and promoting all forms of
images from the XXth and XXIst centuries (photography, cinema, video, installation, web art, etc.). As well
as organizing or co-organizing exhibitions, it hosts film programs, symposia, seminars and educational
activities, and also publishes a range of material. With its high-profile exhibitions of established, little-known
and emerging artists (notably in the Satellite program), the Jeu de Paume ties together different narrative
strands, mixing the historic and the contemporary, oscillating between resonance and dissonance, attracting
broad and diverse audiences.
Beyond its flagship building on Place de la Concorde, Paris, the Jeu de Paume has, since 2010, developed a
partnership with the city of Tours for the presentation of exhibitions with a more historic resonance at the Château de
Tours. These events showcase donations made to the state and archives conserved by public and private institutions
both in France and abroad in a program designed to attract new categories of visitor from the region. As well as
being shown at these two venues, exhibitions organized by the Jeu de Paume are seen around the world thanks
to collaboration, interaction and cooperation with other national or international institutions on the basis of mutual
affinities.
Since 2007 the Jeu de Paume has been working to expand its online activities, developing a dedicated “virtual space”
with an innovative program of special web-based projects and thematic shows entrusted to curators specializing in the
digital arts. Film programs are devised to accompany many of the exhibitions, or to pay tribute to major figures of the
independent filmmaking scene in France and abroad. Specializing in documentary, essay and autobiography, with an
emphasis on previously unscreened work, the programming helps bring filmmakers together with artists. All activities at
the Jeu de Paume are driven by a deep concern for interdisciplinarity in the study of visual culture and images and by
a quest for new meaning in all fields of thought. Talks, seminars and symposia explore the questions and themes raised
by the exhibitions, helping to open up new spaces for critical interaction.
The Jeu de Paume’s modular space enables it to adapt to the varying demands imposed by its activities and confirms
its ambition to provide all its users with an active hub and resource center for education in photographic imagery and
the history of representation and the visual arts. Tours and courses, initiatives for students and teachers, and activities
for families and young visitors, are the focal points of its didactic program. The emphasis here is on participation rather
than contemplation, exchange rather than the “colonization of knowledge,” and sharing rather than the monopolization
of ideas. The Jeu de Paume programme at the Château de Tours also helps extend the dynamic of these educational
activities regionally.
Le magazine, an online publication launched in 2010, draws on a range of resources (video, photo gallery, audio and
text files) to extend the debate to the use of images in the digital era. Le magazine is a unique platform for artistic
content, in-depth articles, virtual tours and portfolios. It is a web-based forum for dialogue between historians,
philosophers, artists, curators, filmmakers, poets and art lovers. Finally, the Jeu de Paume is home to a high-quality
bookshop dedicated to offering an ambitiously comprehensive selection of books and publications to further
knowledge of the artists, photographers and filmmakers showcased by the institution. It holds a permanent stock of
some ten thousand titles on aesthetics, art history and theory, cinema, photography and the new technologies.
34
View of the Jeu de Paume, Paris © Photo Romain Darnaud, Jeu de Paume
35
Practical information
❙ Jeu de Paume
Address
1 Place de la Concorde, 75008 Paris
+33 (0)1 47 03 12 50
www.jeudepaume.org
Opening hours
Tuesday (late-night): 11am–9pm
Wednesday to Sunday: 11am–7pm
Closed Monday
Admission
General admission €10 / Reduced rate €7.50
Free admission: Satellite program; Young Visitor’s Tuesday (the last Tuesday of the month, 11am to 9pm for students
and under-26s); children under-12s
Tickets can be booked online via the Jeu de Paume website, with the Fnac, Digitick and Ticketnet
Members and cultural partners
Free, unlimited admission to exhibitions and all the Jeu de Paume’s cultural activities
Annual membership: full rate €30 / reduced rate €25 / youth rate €20
❙ Press Visuals
Copyright-free visuals can be downloaded from the website www.jeudepaume.org
Section: Professionnels / User name: presskit / Password: photos
❙ Contact Information
Press officer: Annabelle Floriant
+33 (0)1 47 03 13 22 / +33 (0)6 42 53 04 07 / [email protected]
Communications: Anne Racine
+33 (0)1 47 03 13 29 / [email protected]
36
discover the jeu de paume’s online magazine
www.jeudepaume.org/lemagazine