Juan Muñoz

Marian Goodman Galley, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above in June 1997

New York, Dia Center for the Arts, A Place Called Abroad, September 1996 - June 1997, n.p., illustrated in color twice
Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art; Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago; Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum, Juan Muñoz, October 2001 - March 2003, cat. no. 54, pp. 128 - 129, illustrated in color and illustrated in color on the cover (installation photograph from Dia exhibition)

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Juan Muñoz's first major one man show in America was titled A Place Called Abroad and was held at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York.  In this show Muñoz converted nearly 8,000 square feet of galley space into a "street" environment – placing figures and groupings of figures throughout the galleries.  The show was a grand success and propelled Muñoz's career to new levels.  Perhaps the most important and impactful piece in this show, the present work, Five Figures Seated, from 1996 expresses the psychological complexity of human beings  - a theme throughout Muñoz's most successful series of works, referred to as `conversations pieces', and his many variations on the same theme.  Muñoz is greatly respected as a figurative artist; however, he constantly pushed the boundaries and tried to expand on his own inventions in order to delve deeply into the complexities of human relations.

There is a tremendous sense of longing in Muñoz's Five Figures Seated.  At first glance the five figures appear to be configured in a set-up conducive to conversation – a cluster of chairs all facing each other in a room.  The figures seem engaged in conversation, yet upon closer inspection, the viewer realizes they are barely interacting with each other.  Their glances miss each other and they lean forward or backward into space as if they interact with something invisible rather than one another.  The central figure turns awkwardly away from the group entirely and look into the mirror, either to look at himself or to surreptitously observe the others.  These figures are craving connection yet are estranged from one another.  Here, Muñoz draws the viewer into a familiar colloquial visual and then immediately pushes us away – what we feel we should understand we are suddenly disconnected from.   In her essay for A Place Called Abroad, Lynne Cook described Muñoz's space as "placeless place", the perfect two words to summarize the viewer's experience with the artist's works – a familiarity combined with an unknown.  The title of the exhibition reiterates this notion.  The term `abroad' is typically used to describe somewhere else, somewhere different than where one currently is and can be applied to many different places; however, here it is a specific place, a place called Abroad.  It is not a place the viewer knows or has been to but we are still capable of associating with it.

Muñoz has emphasized that his conversation scenes and settings are imaginary, however, he traces the profound psychological isolation from familiar or social situations to his childhood, "When I was a kid living at home, I used to come back to the house every day.  Occasionally – I don't know why – my mother changed the furniture around between the rooms.  So you came in and opened the door of your room and found that your room was no longer your room – it was your brother's.  And in a different room somewhere up the hall was your room, .... Then you grew used to it – until the rooms were changed again.  So I grew up with this experience of dislocation.  You feel uncomfortable yet it's extremely normal.  I suppose that this relationship between the normal and the discomforting is part of the territory of the work."  (Exh. Cat., Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum, Juan Muñoz, 2001, p. 37)  The viewer is dislocated by the present work and Muñoz further separates the viewer with the inclusion of the mirror tilted forward to give another vantage point on the conversation.  The figures that are slightly smaller than life size are now additionally removed from reality and seem oblivious to the viewer's interaction with them – the viewer looks in on their seclusion from ahead and from above. 

Muñoz was invited to reinvent the Dia exhibition for Site Santa Fe despite the work being site specific at Dia.  In Santa Fe the exhibition was titled Street Wise and incorporated some of the same works and added new pieces as well.  In both of these exhibitions it is clear Muñoz was deeply fascinated with the relationship between the individual and architecture.  As one walked through the "streets" built by the artist at these two exhibitions, it was the small enclaves off of the street that caught the corner of their eye – these small spaces with the uncanny deflated figures peaked the viewer's curiosity and simultaneously troubled them.  Muñoz mastered psychological tension and depth in Five Figures Seated and in turn the sculpture is the iconic zenith of his career.