Munoz, Juan

▪ 2002

      Spanish sculptor (b. June 17, 1953, Madrid, Spain—d. Aug. 28, 2001, Ibiza, Spain), created moody and challenging installation artworks, most of which featured monochromatic human figures placed amid unnerving architectural spaces and often incorporating animatronics and sound. In 2000 Muñoz received Spain's highest cultural award, the Premio Nacional de Belles Artes. His last completed significant work, which was installed in London's Tate Modern in June 2001, was “Double Bind,” a vast structure that filled half the museum's grand turbine hall with a false suspended floor, a working elevator, and sculpted figures seemingly frozen in time. A retrospective of Muñoz's work opened at the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., on October 18.

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